


And Then There Was Five

by maremote



Series: And Then There Were Eight [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And Then There Were Eight, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cafes, Clair(e) de Lune, Coffee, Drug Use, Feels, Five-centric, Gen, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Multi, Part 1, Plants, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Stabbie - Freeform, i made canon more painful that it already is and then fixed it bc why not, no beta we die like ben, this will be a series, tua - Freeform, was that too soon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:05:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 28,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maremote/pseuds/maremote
Summary: Allison levels the gun at Vanya’s head, and pulls the trigger.AKAThe one where Five gets better.





	1. Prologue

Allison levels the gun at Vanya’s head, and pulls the trigger.

What happens after that is a bit of a blur, but there’s a bang and a lot of red and something soaking through her pants at the knees. Vanya’s lying in her lap. Little Number Seven is dressed all in white. Her grip on her violin is loose.

Vanya’s hair is loose, flowing down her shoulders. It’s unbearably soft, matted in parts with dark red. Allison is aware of a ringing in her ears and there might be people touching her, but right now all she can process is the shattered remains of her little sister on her lap.

There’s a burning sensation inside Allison’s chest, and she can’t seem to catch her breath. The burning sensation spreads through her like some kind of unbearable cramp. Allison whimpers silently and curls in on herself.

There’s so much blood. Allison tries to wipe some of it away from Vanya’s face and skin and bone and muscle stick to her thumb and peel off Vanya’s face.

Allison thinks she might be crying. Someone’s holding her shoulders. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to focus on anything other than… this.

Her mind is whirling, whirling too fast and she feels nauseous. _Hold it,_ she tells herself. She stops moving her hands and let them grip Vanya loosely.

This is all right. Holding Vanya like this, she can almost pretend she’s comforting her sister. The wetness on her fingers is nothing but tears, tears she can wipe away. Vanya will be all right.

(She won’t.)

In the quiet of the darkness behind her eyelids, she realizes with a chill that Vanya felt the way she does now once. If she concentrates, she can still hear the snippets of Vanya’s screams. Still feel the warmth of blood gushing, fountaining from her own neck. It makes Allison squirm and her neck itch.

The difference between then and now was that Vanya hadn’t meant to hurt Allison.

“Allison? Allison.” Strong arms, tugging her, tugging her away from Vanya. _No,_ Allison tries to say. _Don’t._ She struggles, and can feel Vanya’s body jostling with every movement she makes. A sob rises in her throat, and she’s split between freezing to avoid moving her sister and thrashing to stay with Vanya as long as possible. She ends up flailing a little, but ends up wrapped in Luther’s arms.

Allison wants to scream. She wants to scream from the rooftops that _this was not how this was supposed to end._ She wants to open her mouth and use her power, her gift, her curse. _I heard a rumour…_

She wants to rumour the world back to the way it was. She wants to rumour herself into forgetting. She wants to rumour Vanya back to life.

Instead she sits there, in the shattered Icarus Theatre, and lets Luther hold her.


	2. When There's a Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Practicalities can be a bitch. In this case, the practicality that’s getting on Five’s nerves is Reginald Hargreeves’ will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we goooo

What people don’t understand about aftermath, Five thinks to himself, is that it’s rarely full of emotion and sober self-reflection.

Much as Five has to admit he loves his siblings, they’re naive. In fact, compared to him they’re romantics, no matter how disillusioned they think themselves to be.

Five knows what his siblings have not yet had the chance to realise: that emotions are rarely courteous enough to wait for the tragedy to pass to set in. They have a tendency to set in and take control in the _middle_ of the chaos, not when it has already passed.

Rather, aftermaths are populated by minor inconveniences and practicalities. When the dust settled around him, when a 13-year-old Five was standing all alone amidst the rubble of the world, it wasn’t the crushing loneliness that got to him first; it was the hunger, then the itchiness of the dust settling on his bare skin. Then the cold, then the ache of his legs from walking so long.

Practicalities can be a bitch. In this case, the practicality that’s getting on Five’s nerves is Reginald Hargreeves’ will.

Turns out the old man wasn’t done with them yet. It’s been a week since the averted apocalypse, and Five’s broken, broken family has been sitting in a dingy little booth in some nameless diner for the past hour or so, listening to a greasy, potbellied, chortling woman drone on and on about the probate process and the opening of a bank account in the name of Reginald Hargreeves’ estate.

Five turns his attention to his six siblings- no, five, he thinks, remembering Ben, and then winces, remembering Vanya, remembering the way the blood had spread across the stage.

Four.

Something that may once have been a heart clenches painfully in his chest, but he pushes past it. There’ll be time for emotion later. Right now, his four remaining siblings sit like jagged, broken puzzle pieces around a diner booth.

Luther seems to be the least affected of them all, but that’s hardly a surprise. Five tilts his head and sticks his chin out, frowns. Luther’s hands are fidgeting nervously, and he’s tense, leaning on his elbows towards Ms. Benson, Reginald’s lawyer. Five suspects he’s rather hoping that Reginald’s will will hold some clue, some hidden note that will reveal a grand master plan, some key that Luther can fit into the elaborate lock of a lie he has built himself. Luther’s whole life, as far as Five can tell, leans on the idea that everything Reginald Hargreeves has ever done has been for a good cause.

Luther’s not an option, then. Next.

Diego. Number Two. Diego sits between Ms. Benson and Five, and is perfectly still, staring blankly at the diner table. To be honest, Five isn’t really sure where Diego lies. He’s aware of some sense of loss pervading Number Two over that Detective- the one Five was trying to shake and then suddenly didn’t have to- but other than that, Diego’s a bit of a mystery. What Five does know is that Diego is angry, and bitter, and overprotective, and frankly too young and brash and inexperienced for him to deal with.

Allison is nice enough, but she’s got too many strings attaching her to other people. She has a daughter. She has an ex-husband. She has Luther (Five is beginning to suspect there may be something there that shouldn’t be.) And she’s just lost Vanya.

They all did, but Allison has been taking it harder than the rest of them. Right now, she’s curled in the corner of the booth, head rested against the cool glass of the window. She doesn’t seem to be listening to Mr. Benson at all.

Allison, Five decides, risks too much on humans. Five has learnt long ago what a bad idea it is to put too much faith in others.

Not Allison, then. Five realises with a start that that leaves him only one option: Klaus.

It’s not too bad an option, actually, all things considered.

Klaus is greasy and shaky. His dark circles stand out even under his eyeliner, and there are scratch marks up and down their arms. His fingers are fidgeting nervously with the dog tags around his neck, and his leg is bouncing nervously. In short, he’s a mess.

Klaus isn’t attached to anything, really, or anyone. His drugs, at one point, but if he’s to be believed he’s been sober since 3 days before Vanya died- making it a week and 3 days of withdrawal. To be honest, Five isn’t sure what Klaus has other than drugs.

He’s perfect for what Five has planned.

“Mr. Hargreeves?”

Five looks up and notices that the table has gone silent. Luther is even paler than usual; Allison has been shaken out of her stupor and looks lost for words. Klaus is still pale and shaky but now also confused, and Diego has a bit of a sad smirk on his face.

Ms. Benson clears her throat. “As I was saying, Mr. Hargreeves, as per the instructions in Reginald Hargreeves’ will, his estate has been divided into six parts to be distributed amongst you.”

“Now, normally, the processing of the will would take eight to twelve months, but given, uh…,” Ms. Benson shifts in her seat uncomfortably. “… your fathers’ unusual circumstances…,”

Five snorts. And a hefty bribe, no doubt.

“-as I was saying, given your father’s unusual circumstances, his estate has been divided in six parts as per his request and will be divided amongst you.”

Ms. Benson shifts with difficulty in her seat, pulling out a giant leather purse from somewhere beside her. The clasp squeaks open and she grunts, leaning back to give herself room to reach inside. Diego leans away to give her room and Five sighs, moving over to allow the two room.

Finally, Ms. Benson drops six paper envelopes full of cash on the table, and across the table Luther’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is this legal?”

Diego groans and even Klaus gives a little giggle. Allison, head still pressed against the cool glass of the diner window, closes her eyes and turns her face away. Luther fidgets with his hands, managing to look impossibly small despite taking up more than half the booth; then he squares his shoulders and Five can feel his hackles rising.

Diego, Five can tell, is about to say something that’ll definitely start a fight, and Five _really_ doesn’t have time to put with that right now, so he leans forward on his elbows. “No,” he tells Luther simply. “It’s not.”

Luther’s breathing is a little ragged, and he’s staring at Five like a cornered animal. Five raises his eyebrows at him and tries to look as nonthreatening as it’s possible to look when you’re a very angry, very impatient 58-year-old man squeezed into a body that’s not _nearly_ roomy or comfortable enough.

It takes a few seconds, but Luther blinks and looks away, tucking his hands underneath the table and looking so very _small_ again. Five almost feels sorry for him. (And isn’t that ironic; him feeling bad for Luther for looking small.)

Five turns back to Ms. Benson, who is visibly uncomfortable and sweating nervously. “You were saying?”

“Y-Yes.” Ms. Benson clears her throat and picks up the first envelope. “This one is addressed to… number two?”

“That’s me,” Diego drawls, plucking the envelope from Ms. Benson with two fingers and flipping it open. He lets out a low whistle when he sees what’s inside and tucks the envelope closed again.

Ms. Benson frowns, then blinks and picks up the next envelope. “Number three?”

Silence. An awkward moment, then Luther shifts nervously. “Allison, that’s you.”

Allison swallows, then slowly reaches into her bag and pulls out a notepad and a pen. There’s silence while she writes, then holds up her notepad. _I don’t want it._

“Allison-,” Luther starts.

Klaus perks up. “I’ll take it,” he interrupts, and Diego shoots him a dirty look. “You don’t do drugs anymore. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” Klaus laughs weakly, then collapses back into the shaky, sweaty state he’s been stagnant in for most of the conversation.

Ms. Benson picks up the next envelope. “Number Four.”

It takes Diego reaching across the table and prodding Klaus’s arm for him to realise that his number has been called. “Oh, is that me?” He tries to prop himself up on one arm and promptly slides back down onto the table. “Well, that can’t be right, why would dear old dad leave anything to me?” He addresses the question to Ms. Benson, who is looking more and more like she regrets having been assigned this case by the second.

Ms. Benson looks around the table for help and finds it in none of the Hargreeves siblings’ faces, so she opens and closes her mouth instead, reminding Five a little of a fish. Finally she gets out, “I- I just want to do my job.”

Five takes pity on her and grabs Klaus’s money for him, sliding it across the table. Klaus stares at it for a minute, briefly seeming interested, then slumps back down onto the table.

“Number five?” Ms. Benson says and Five jumps a little despite himself. Judging by the looks on his siblings’ faces, they weren’t expecting this any more than he was. Five reaches out and grabs the envelope from Benson and can’t stop himself from flipping it open, flipping through the money, checking to see if maybe there was a note, something, anything. He knows it makes him pathetic. He knows it’s the kind of thing Luther would do, and he tries to seem nonchalant as he slips the envelope into his breast pocket. It makes his jacket too heavy on the one side and he takes it out and puts in his lap, fiddles with it self-consciously.

He has no idea what he’s going to do with it.

(Well, that’s not _exactly_ true. He does have an idea, but he’ll need Klaus’s help.)

“Number six?” Klaus actually sits up this time, managing to prop himself up on one elbow without sliding back down. “Ben says, uh, that I should-,” he gestures vaguely with one hand and then lets it drop back down onto the table. “I should take that for him.”

“Of course he does,” Luther mutters, and Diego bristles.

“The last one,” Ms. Benson sighs, and Five can hear the exhaustion in her voice. “Number seven?”

Five freezes, and the air seems to drop a few degrees. His eyes flick to his siblings to gauge their reactions, and they don’t seem to be handling this any better than he is.

Surprisingly, Luther is the first to speak. “Vanya,” he says quietly. “Her name was Vanya.”

Allison closes her eyes again and tucks her face out of sight against the window. Klaus leans back against the back of the seat, looking impossibly tired. He closes his eyes and frowns, and for a second Five thinks he’s going to say something.

Five sneaks a glance to the left, where Diego’s elbows are on the table. His face rests on his folded hands, but the lighting’s all wrong and all Five can catch of it is his profile.

“Right,” Ms. Benson says, sounding incredibly stressed. “Well. I’ll leave this with you, then.”

She gets up to leave and manages to squeeze past Diego and Five, only knocking Five on the head with her bag a couple times. They’ve been staring at her retreating back for a couple seconds when Luther calls after her. “Wait.”

Ms. Benson turns in the aisle, a look of complete and utter dread on her face.

Five groans, annoyed. “What _now_ , Luther?”

Luther looks nervously around, then swallows. “Is that- is that it?”

It takes Five all of five seconds to understand what he’s on about.

When Reginald Hargreeves wrote his will, he declared that his estate should be divided up and distributed between six of his children within a matter of weeks.

Five being the one left out, or Vanya, or Klaus, or even Diego didn’t stretch the bounds of reality. Even Allison could be understood.

But Luther? Number one? The perfect little soldier? The one who stayed when everyone else left?

“No, Mr. Hargreeves,” says Ms. Benson, sounding exhausted. “That’s it. Now if you’ll excuse me, my work is finished here.”

The siblings stay silent as Ms. Benson waddles down the aisle of the diner and pushes out the diner doors. Finally, all is silent.

It’s dark outside. It’s been raining, and the neon lights reflect off the puddles in the asphalt. It’s kind of mesmerising, Five thinks to himself.

When Five was stuck in the apocalypse, the nights were incredibly cold and uncomfortable and lonely and _beautiful._ Without the light pollution of a thousand cities, every star in the sky shone brighter than the one beside it.  The incredible brightness of it all, the way it reminded him of sugar spilled on one of the black counter-tops at Griddy’s, was all ridiculously different from nights now.

This is different and the same in a million ways at the same time.

Five is jostled back to reality when Diego brushes past him. There’s an awkward silence as his boots thud across the linoleum floor towards the door.

Then it’s the four of them. Luther, Allison, Klaus and Five. One, Three, Four and Five.

There’s an unbearable disconnect between the four of them. They’ve been spinning in their own orbits for so long that they’ve developed their own solar systems.

Five gets up, drawing the attention of the other three.

He nods to Klaus. “Coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment telling me what you think  
> and/or come scream at me on tumblr (@dailyplantpics)


	3. Panthalassa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Luther, listen. There’s nothing left here. Vanya’s gone, Dad’s dead, and the Academy’s gone. Pogo’s gone, and Grace is gone, and we avoided the apocalypse, and there’s nothing left, okay. There’s nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) enjoy

Allison is the first to leave the motel across the street from Rita’s Diner.

Five wakes up the next morning to Luther banging on his room’s door. Klaus, who occupies the other bed in their room, groans and squirrels down further into the bed, while Five, who has been up for hours, yanks the door open to see Luther standing there, breathing hard.

“Allison,” he pants. “Where is she?”

Five frowns. “I don’t know. Why?”

Luther swallows nervously. “She’s gone. Her room’s empty, and the clerk says she checked out.”

Five rolls his eyes. All these years and Luther’s still the same. “Then we know what happened, don’t we?” he sighs.

Luther, the poor oaf, looks like Five’s about to tell him the secret to life, the universe, and everything. “What?”

“She _left,_ Luther,” Five says as gently as he can. He watches Luther’s face morph into a perfect mask of shock.

Luther blinks. “She- she left?”

A voice calls out from somewhere behind Five, and he jumps. “Did you think we were just gonna stay here forever?”

Five turns to see Klaus half-raised, blinking sleepily at them from his cocoon of blankets, and is struck again by how steep the dark parabolas beneath and around his eyes are. He turns back to Luther, who seems to be struggling to form words.

“Luther,” he says, and Luther jumps. “She left. She moved on. That’s what people do when there’s nothing left.”

Luther’s eyebrows furrow, and fuck, Five almost feels sorry for the guy. “Nothing left? But-,”

He’s interrupted by Diego stomping by, duffel thrown over one shoulder. “Well, I’m off.”

“What?” Luther breathes in disbelief as Five asks, “Where to?”

Diego shoots Luther a dirty look, then turns to Five. He’s got dark circles too, Five notes. “I’m not sure yet.” He tosses Five a burner phone. It’s black, and Five remembers seeing one like it in the convenience store beside the diner. He turns it over in his hand. “My number’s in there,” Diego says, nodding to the phone.

“Great.” Five pockets the phone. Luther, who has been looking back and forth between them uncomprehendingly, huffs and turns to Diego. “Did you know?”

Diego frowns, and Five rubs his temples. “About?”

Luther seems to remember who he’s talking to, and he straightens up. “About Allison. Leaving.”

Diego nods, shrugs nonchalantly. “Yeah, we had breakfast. She says bye to you and Klaus,” he adds, turning to Five.

“And me?” Luther asks, sounding incredulous.

Diego frowns, pretending to think for a moment, then shrugs. “Nope,” he says in a what-can-I-do voice, then nods to Five and grabs the doorframe, swinging himself partway through the doorway. “Klaus, you coming?”

“Actually, I think I’m going to stay here, with- with Five,” Klaus responds and collapses onto the pillows. Diego frowns for a moment, looking worried, so Five interjects. “Don’t worry.” Diego turns to him, and Five nods. “I got him.”

For a second, Five thinks he’ll argue, then he nods. “You might have to tie him up occasionally.”

Five and Luther stand there until Diego’s around the corner, out of sight. Then Luther turns to Five, and he seems to be on the verge of panic.

“And you,” he asks, sounding desperate. “Are you leaving too?”

Five shrugs, deciding to give it to him straight. “Yes,” he says simply. “I am.”

Luther looks floored.

He opens his mouth and then closes it, then opens it again. Five waits at first, but seconds pass and Luther still hasn’t manage to say anything.

Five takes pity on him.

“Luther-,” Luther flinches. “Luther, listen. There’s nothing left here. Vanya’s gone-,” another flinch- “-Dad’s dead, and the Academy’s gone.” Five pauses, suddenly feeling out of breath. “Pogo’s gone, and Grace is gone, and we avoided the apocalypse, and there’s _nothing left, okay_. There’s nothing.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Five knows that he’s breathing a little too hard and too fast and too deeply, but he ignores it in favour of stepping back into the room and shutting the door before Luther can ask awkward questions or drag this conversation out any further.

“Hey,” Klaus murmurs from behind him, and Five turns to see Klaus peeking curiously over his shoulder from his cocoon of blankets. Five can vaguely see Klaus frowning from the bed. “You okay?”

“Fine,” says Five, and tries to ignore the way it comes out just a little too breathy. He marches over to Klaus’s bed and bends down, grabbing Klaus’s discarded pants and shirt from the floor. He tosses them onto the bed. “Get dressed,” he tosses over his shoulder as he makes his way to the door, mind already racing.

“Where are we going?” Klaus asks, and there’s a rustling of fabric somewhere behind Five.

“To the bank,” Five answers, hoping that Klaus still knows where his inheritance is. “We’re going to get you a bank account.”

Klaus yawns, then yelps and there’s a thud. Five sighs and turns to see him on the floor, struggling with his pants.

“ _Then_ ,” Five continues, making an impatient gesture, prompting Klaus to wriggle into a semi-sitting position to continue pulling on his clothes. “We’re going shopping.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment and let me know what you think!  
> feel free to come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	4. Enter Stella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey,” says Five uncertainly, stretching out a hand and then dropping it. “You okay?”  
> It’s a stupid question, and both him and Klaus know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for all your lovely comments! They really motivate me to keep churning out chapters.

“You know, when you said we were going shopping, this is _not_ what I pictured. You know, I thought we’d be shopping for something fun, like clothes, or-or medieval weaponry-,” Klaus trips on the pavement and stumbles over his words- “not retail space.”

Five grits his teeth, trying not to snap at Klaus, who has been lagging behind him for the past hour or so. Instead he picks up the pace, shoulders hunched and tense as he storms down the sidewalk. Church Avenue is only ten blocks from the Academy. _Former_ Academy, Five reminds himself. The fact is that now that the apocalypse has been averted, Five needs somewhere to stay; somewhere permanent. And unfortunately, it’s hard to get deeds signed in your name when you have the body of a 13-year-old and technically don’t exist.

That’s where Klaus and Five’s’ new joint bank account come in.

(And that’s definitely all it is. It’s got nothing to do with the thought of leaving Klaus alone in that motel or with Luther making his skin crawl. Five doesn’t know much of his siblings’ lives from when he was gone, but he knows Klaus has had to do things and stay places that he shouldn’t have had to. Five has been gone for too long and missed too much and let too much happen.)

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Klaus complains as he drops behind out of sight. A few rushed footsteps and he’s beside Five again. Five shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and slows down, just a little. “You still got your card?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus murmurs, slapping his back pocket.

“Good,” Five mutters, casting a cursory glance up and down the street.

They walk for a few minutes in silence until Klaus speaks up again. “So- okay, wait- can we- dude, can we stop for a second?” Five’s ready to ignore him, to keep going, but there’s something genuinely pained in Klaus’s voice. So he stops and turns.

Klaus is bent over double, hands braced on knees. He’s shaking and panting. A thin sheen of sweat coats his bare arms.

Well, fuck.

“Hey,” says Five uncertainly, stretching out a hand and then dropping it. “You okay?”

It’s a stupid question, and they both know it.

Klaus answers anyway. “Yeah, yeah,” he laughs, his voice high and weak. He straightens up, tries to take a few steps and ends up leaning against the side of the nearest building.

“It’s just… you know. Withdrawal’s a bitch.”

Five hums noncommittally. There’s an awkward moment where Klaus struggles to straighten up and Five struggles not to stare. Instead he looks anywhere but at Klaus; up at the sky, which is a lukewarm shade of blue, then across the street, at the lady standing by the bus stop. Five turns his gaze to the window of the store Klaus is leaning against and frowns. Tacked up behind the dusty glass window of the store is a sign printed neatly by hand: _Retail Space For Sale. Inquire within or call: 917 219 5787._

***

Turns out there’s a lot more involved in buying retail space than Five thought there would be.

Dharun Serja, the old man selling 1615 Church Avenue, insists on receiving the payment of $1,299,000 in cash. Luckily, Klaus and Five have inherited enough between the two of them for that to be a drop in the bucket.

Dharun’s a sweet guy, but more importantly he doesn’t seem to find it odd that what looks like a 13-year-old is dragging around a 30-year-old and managing all their finances. Five inquires as to the reason behind the sale, and Dharun seems more than happy to tell him.

“As you can probably tell, I haven’t got long,” Dharun croaks, then dissolves into a coughing fit. “I’m flying to France in a few weeks. My daughter’s studying business in Lyons, and I want to see her before I go.”

He smiles at them through crooked teeth. “I was going to keep this place, you know. But I decided I should see it into the hands of its next owner. I’ve lived and worked here since I was 30, which makes it-,” Dharun whistles lowly. “Why, that makes it 40 years that I’ve had this place.”

Five realises with a start that the age gap between him and Dharun is only about a decade long.

“Ah, but I’ve only got myself to blame for this,” Dharun says sadly. “Cigarettes,” he explains, when met with Five’s questioning look. “They’re the devil in disguise.” He shakes his head soberly and turns to Klaus. “A word of advice to the young- when it comes to smoking, don’t ever start. Nothing good will come of it.”

“I would _never_ ,” says Klaus earnestly, and Five has to turn a snort into a cough.

Dharun has a few specific requests about the place, however. The first request is that they can’t sell to any big companies. “If you let them, they’ll turn this whole block into skyscrapers and nothing but.”

The second request is that they don’t paint the walls red. It’s too angry a colour, Dharun says, and has no place on a wall. “If you paint this place red, I’ll come back and haunt you for sure,” he laughs. It’s a joke, obviously, but Five feels Klaus shudder behind him.

(To be fair, though, Klaus has been shuddering a lot lately, so it might not have anything to do with the thought of being haunted by a friendly, eccentric old man.)

The requests are odd, certainly, but they’re requests, not conditions, and there’s no contract, so Five doesn’t mind accepting, not that he’s got any burning desire to sell his newly-acquired property or to paint it red. The third request, however, is by far the most difficult, and the strangest.

“I want you to take care of Stella,” Dharun says, pulling a brown ceramic flowerpot Five had barely noticed across the table towards them. The plant inside is flourishing, with dark, silky leaves each the size of one of Five’s hands and strange single white petals growing around the off-white cylindrical ends of some of its stems.

“She’s a peace lily,” explains Dharun. “Doesn’t need too much light. Just set her by a window, water her every morning and night. She’ll be just fine. I’d take her with me, but I don’t think she’d do too well on the plane.”

Five is about to suggest an alternative when Klaus wraps his arms around Stella and pulls it- her? - close. “You’re not going to abandon Stella, are you, Five?” he whines, and places a light kiss on one of Stella’s- one of _the plant’s_ leaves. Five glares at him and Klaus sticks his tongue out in response.

Five is 100% ready to put his foot down and turn down the place just to avoid having to deal with _Stella,_ but claiming Stella is the first remotely Klaus-like thing Klaus has done since Vanya died, and it kind of makes Five want to indulge him, so he does.

“Fine,” he mutters, pretending not to hear Klaus’s quiet “Yaaaayyy!” as he stretches his hand across the table to shake Dharun’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment and let me know what you think!  
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	5. Exit Dharun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus shoots him a curious look and Five avoids it by glancing over his shoulder at Dharun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made myself cry over a plant

They move in a week later.

It’s an incredibly awkward week. Five has no interest in further drama when it comes to Luther, so when Number One joins them at the diner for breakfast every morning and dinner every night, he doesn’t put up a fight.

The days he and Klaus spend on Church Avenue, Five managing paperwork and Klaus crooning to Stella. To Dharun’s credit, he realises pretty soon what’s up with Klaus.

“How long has he been clean?” he asks in a hushed tone a few days along, as Klaus twirls in a not-so-graceful waltz with Stella wrapped in his arms. Five debates faking denial, then decides there’s no point. “About two weeks.”

Dharun whistles lowly, flipping a page and motioning towards a blank form. Five pulls it towards him and takes the proffered pen.

“You’ll want to keep him hydrated,” says Dharun knowingly as Five scribbles away. “I’ve seen my share of cold-turkey quitters.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Five, then calls Klaus over to sign the form, since the bank account is in his name.

When the finally move out, Luther follows them to the bus stop. They stand there awkwardly until the bus comes, at which point Five turns to him.

“Well, goodbye, Luther,” he says, extending his hand. “I’d say it’s been fun, but it hasn’t.”

Five doesn’t look back, but he imagines that Luther probably stood there after they had gone, waiting to be told what to do next.

Dharun meets them at the door of 1615 Church, keys in hand. He shakes Five’s and Klaus’s hands with a smile and gives them a forwarding address.

“I don’t expect I’ll see either of you again,” Dharun says, as a taxi idles by the curb. “But it was nice meeting you.”

Klaus, who is holding Stella, hums. “You never know,” he says cryptically, “We might cross paths at some point.”

Dharun looks baffled.

“Ignore him,” Five says hurriedly. “I hope you find peace in Lyons.”

“I’m sure I will,” Dharun answers, then hesitates. He turns towards Klaus, stretching his arms out towards Stella. “May I?”

Once Dharun is gripping Stella, there’s an awkward moment of silence.

Five clears his throat. “We’ll give you two a moment,” he says, dragging Klaus off to the side by his elbow. They stand off the side while Dharun says his goodbyes.

It’s a cool, early-spring day, and there’s a bit of a breeze in the air. Five kicks at the pavement and squints at the sky, watching the clouds drift slowly by.

There are people on the street and on the sidewalk and in the buildings, people who are safe and alive and have no idea what Five has lost.

Unbidden, the image of Vanya lying immobile springs to mind and bile rises in his throat. He pushes it down and sucks in a breath, suddenly feeling too warm.

Klaus shoots him a curious look and Five avoids it by glancing over his shoulder at Dharun.

The old man is facing away from them, but Five can see his profile, quite clearly. He can just about make out his hooded eyes, and faintly trembling lips.

Dharun straightens up, blows out a breath and waves them over.

“I’m sorry,” he clocks wetly, and blinks a couple times. “I know this must seem silly. I know she’s not really a person. I just-,” he sucks in a shaky breath, and there’s a beat of silence.

“I get it,” Five says quietly, and he does.

Dharun smiles at him. “You know, I have the strangest feeling that you do.”

Dharun’s taxi honks, and he jumps. “Oh! Goodness. Well,” he presses Stella into Klaus’s hands. “Goodbye, Mr. Klaus, Mr. Five.” He pauses and nods to Stella.

“Stella,” he whispers and blows her a kiss. His voice is full of meaning, and he seems to have tear his eyes away as he leaves.

Dharun waves out the window at them as the taxi drives away, but somehow Five suspects he isn’t waving at him or Klaus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment and tell me what you think  
> come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	6. Dehydration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Now listen here, you little shit,” he hisses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :|

Five could kick himself for not figuring out the dehydration part.

It’s been a couple of days since Dharun left, and though Five will never admit it out loud, he’s eternally grateful to the old man for the tip about keeping Klaus hydrated. Klaus has been up and down these past few days, alternately so cheerful Five wonders if there’s any way he could’ve gotten his hands on a fix (Five’s been watching him day and night, so it isn’t likely.) and depressingly low. Currently he’s tied up in the back room of the shop, whining.

Of course, with Klaus laid up like this, Five has been having to take care of Stella, and it hasn’t been going well. Dharun’s only been gone for 3 days and already her leaves are drooping and tinged yellow.

“She’s probably pining,” Klaus had suggested knowingly when Five had brought it up with him. “We need to make sure she doesn’t pine herself to death. Maybe if we FaceTime Dharun-,”

Even once Five had pointed out that a) plants didn’t pine and b) they didn’t have Dharun’s number, Klaus kept insisting that Five had somehow “hurt Stella’s feelings.”

1615 Church Avenue is two stories- the lower level is comprised of a large store area, a back room with a door to a tiny backyard and a passageway with an iron spiral staircase leading to the second floor, where there are two bedrooms, a living area and what Five assumes is an unusually spacious closet. Each floor has a tiny bathroom tiled in white and robin’s-egg blue.

Five fiddles absently with the pen he’s been using to make a list of some basic necessities they lack and sighs. He’s been calculating the cost of living: given this is upstate New York and that Klaus is going to be decidedly high-maintenance for a while, it evens out to approximately $1,500 per person, per month. The money itself isn’t a problem, but Five is going to have to do something that he never in a million years would want or thought he would have to do.

Five is going to have to go shopping.

Five, who is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the main store area, groans and falls back onto his back.

He closes his eyes. They’ll need phones and a computer, which means they’ll also need a phone and internet bundle. They need a fridge, and food, and clothes, and bedding for the two cots Dharun left behind. There are a couple pieces of furniture already supplied to them, courtesy of Dharun, and Five doesn’t imagine them needing any more furniture.

What else?

Oh, yes. Cups, and plates and bowls and cutlery. Toilet paper. Shampoo, soap, pots and pans. Coats and boots, eventually. Makeup for Klaus. A wallet for Klaus. Metro passes for the both of them, though Five could probably ride for free. He’s screwed if they ask for ID, though.

Once they have all that, Five can focus on keeping Klaus- and Stella- alive. Once Klaus in better, Five muses, he’ll probably take over when it comes to Stella. So all he really needs to do is get them set up and help Klaus through withdrawal.

And then… what?

For a second, Five slips and imagines what he’s been so careful not to imagine all this time.

He thinks ahead.

It’s a horrifying sight.

Five has spent his life defying the odds, sacrificing everything and everyone to stop the apocalypse. There isn’t much that scares Five, despite his size; but there is one image that insists on pervading every nightmare.

It’s the image of Five all alone, isolated, the last man on Earth, amidst a whole lot of nothing. His siblings, his family, his world buried under the weight of all the rubble.

Five came back to the future to avoid being trapped in a world of pure nothingness, but it turns out that apocalypse or not, his life is empty and bleak.

It occurs to Five as he lies there that having the body of a 13-year-old has more significant consequences than he’d thought at first.

As far as Five can tell, he’s aging normally for a 13-year-old, which means that he’ll be alive 20 years from now. In 30 years, he’ll still only be 43, physically. He might even live for another 50 years.

Five is going to outlive everyone he knows and loves by at least a decade.

He’s going to have to go to all their funerals, he realises and it’s like the apocalypse did happen, because lying there he feels like there’s a jagged, heavy chunk of concrete crushing the air from his lungs. The thought of having to live alone again- the thought of living at all for 50, 60 more years- makes the rest of his life seem like a desert road, stretching out in front of him.

If Five were younger, perhaps he’d be content to enjoy the journey. But Five is old and tired, and all he craves is the destination.

 _I’ve done my time,_ he wants to scream at life. _Why do I have to do it all again?_

Five screws his eyes shut and sits up, pressing his palms to his eyes. He will _not_ cry. Right now, he has work to do.

Five stands and makes his way to the counter where Stella sits, the picture of slowly wilting innocence. He braces his hands on the counter on either side of Stella and leans down to stare at her on eye-level.

“Now listen here, you little shit,” he hisses. “I know you’re tired. I know you miss him. But I promised someone I’d take care of you and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now you can either accept it and start fucking blooming, or- no, you know what? That’s your only option, because I’m getting you and me through this whether you want to live or not. Got it?”

Stella doesn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” Five mutters, and picks up the watering can. “Now drink up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think.  
> come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	7. Many More Sunsets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s beautiful, and though he knows it’s cheesy, Five can’t help but wonder where his siblings are right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> adulting is Hard.

“Dharun didn’t strike me as the type to put up with mold,” Five can’t stop himself from commenting as he and Klaus scrub angrily at the baseboard in the first upstairs bedroom. It’s the last room in the house for them to clean, and (of course) it’s also the dirtiest.

“He was old,” replies Klaus with a grunt and a sigh, sitting back on his heels. He’s dressed in a very loud, very frilly t-shirt and ripped jeans from their shopping trip earlier that day, which had been surprisingly less hellish than Five had expected it to be. “He probably couldn’t really take care of this place on his own anymore.”

Five has to admit that’s a good point. He keeps scrubbing, and hears the telltale sound of scrubbing behind him, signalling that Klaus has gotten back to work.

Five’s new jeans and t-shirt feel strange on him. He’s never actually worn anything this casual before, he realises, as he wipes down the section he’s been scrubbing and moves mechanically forwards, dipping his brush in the bucket of soapy water by his side.

It’s surprisingly calming, this, and Five allows his mind to drift a little; just enough so that he’s in a kind of semi-present stupor as he scrubs and wipes his way across the room. He barely notices he’s done until Klaus is beside him, and they both sit back, Klaus sitting on his heels like before, Five cross-legged.

Klaus, who insists for some inane reason on bringing Stella with him to every room, looks over his shoulder at her, and Five follows his gaze.

“How’s she doing?” he asks, and hates himself for referring to a plant as she. Klaus, however, beams at him, which only makes him feel a little better. “She’s wonderful. I don’t know what you said to her, she’s completely over Dharun.”

Five stands and walks over to the window. The latch sticks and there’s no screen: still he pulls the window up and sticks his head out.

The sun is setting, and the sky is burning down. Blue and purple tinge what Five can see of the horizon from his second-floor perch, and the golden light is soft on everything.

It’s beautiful, and though he knows it’s cheesy, Five can’t help but wonder where his siblings are right now.

Is Luther still in the motel? Where did Allison run off to? What about Diego? As for Ben and Vanya-

Five turns to Klaus, who is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room cuddling Stella and watching him. “Klaus, is Ben here?”

Klaus closes his eyes, hums. “Not at the moment.”

“But he has been,” Five surmises, heart racing. “What about Vanya?”

Klaus shakes his head sadly. He warps his arms tighter around Stella, rocking gently side to side. “I haven’t seen her.”

Five isn’t sure how he feels about that. He wants to see Vanya- that much he knows- but god, even her name makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. He lets himself sink onto the floor in front of Klaus, mirroring Klaus’s pose. Wordlessly, Klaus hands him Stella and Five takes her, rests his forehead on the cool hedge of her flowerpot. A faint breeze floats in through the open window behind him and tickles the hairs on the back of his neck.

“Hey,” says Klaus softly, and Five closes his eyes. “You okay?”

Five isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep it together if he tries to answer honestly, so instead he runs over what he has to- what _he and Klaus_ still have to do.

The phone and internet have been taken care of, and so has the shopping. Now comes actually moving in. Five rolls Stella’s pot against his forehead. They need to fit the cots with bedding, stock the fridge and pantry, do laundry-

Bony hands pull Stella away from him- and Five sighs, dropping his head into his hands. There’s a dull, quiet thud and then Klaus is pulling Five’s wrists away from his eyes.

“Hey,” Klaus says, all soft and worried. Stella sits on the floor beside him.

Five is tired, so tired, and his throat feels dry.

“I’m fine,” he tries to say, but it comes out far too quiet and raspy to be believable.

The sun is setting, and Five’s going to have to watch it set over and over and over again for longer than what is fair or right. Klaus scrambles to his knees and wraps his arms around Five, and for once Five lets himself sink into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	8. Careers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How about McDonalds?” Five suggests, only half-joking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so much for the kudos and the comments! It can get hard writing a chapter a day but it really helps to know you guys appreciate my work.

Five thinks he falls asleep in Klaus’s arms, because the next thing he knows he’s waking up in bed.

Of course, ‘bed’ is an overstatement; the mattress is crooked and the bedding is mostly still folded. Klaus seems to have simply piled up half the linens they’d bought and plopped Five on top of it.

Five grimaces at the image of being carried to bed like a kid and slides off the bed. It’s morning, by the looks of the sun shining in through the old venetian blinds on the windows, and Five realises that they don’t own any clocks or watches.

He feels… groggy. Tired, but somehow still well-rested.

He needs coffee.

Luckily, Five distinctly remembers buying some during their grocery trip yesterday, so he makes his way downstairs to the kitchen, vaguely wondering where Klaus is and whether he’s still asleep.

He trips twice going down the stairs and wonders whether he should call it a day and go back to bed.

Finally, though, he’s in the kitchen, and he might have fallen asleep a few times while making coffee because he doesn’t really remember much of it up until he starts pouring his coffee and realises that he’s completely missing the cup. Luckily, he’s doing it over the sink and there’s plenty left in the French press.

He sinks into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and focuses on loading himself up with caffeine, but the moment he looks up from his coffee, Klaus is in his face. “Ben thinks I should get a job.”

Five is interested, despite himself, and grateful that Klaus isn’t bringing last night up. “So he’s back, is he?”

Klaus grabs Five’s coffee from in front of him and chugs it, scalding hot. Five considers resisting, but the coffee they chose is truly, really awful, and he watches Klaus gag halfway through and then drop the empty cup, grimacing. “Yup. He’s back. And he won’t _tell me_ why he _left!_ ” Klaus hollers to some seemingly empty corner. Five cranes his neck and squints in what he assumes to be Ben’s general direction, but sees nothing.

“It’s not a bad idea,” he says instead, trying not to let on how off it feels to _know_ Ben is there without being able to _see_ him. His empty coffee cup rolls a little, and Five watches it stop when it sticks on the handle.

“ _Ye-ah_ , but I don’t know,” Klaus half-whines, dragging his hands down his face as he plops himself down in the kitchen chair opposite Five. It’s morning, and light is shining through the cracks in Dharun’s old venetian blinds. Five tilts his head, inspects Klaus. He’s decidedly sweaty, but on the plus side his eyes aren’t nearly as hazy and lost as they usually are. He’s changed clothes since yesterday, too, which is good. But he’s _really_ sweaty, Five realises upon closer inspection, and gets up from the table.

“I just don’t _know_ ,” Klaus groans as Five gets a glass out of the cupboard and opens the tap. “I mean, maybe he’s right, you know? Maybe I need to something to distract me, from- from- all of this.”

Five finishes pouring Klaus’s glass and turns off the tap, then reconsiders and gets out another glass, pours one for himself too. “Maybe.” He turns around and slides Klaus his glass, then sits down, frowning in concentration.

Klaus grabs the glass absently and throws half of it back in one gulp. “But _where_?”

“How about McDonalds?” Five suggests, only half-joking.

“Not a bad idea,” Klaus responds, “but I was thinking-,” he stands and moves over to the counter, where Stella sits beside the only window not covered with a blind, demure and smug. Five scowls at her. Typical Stella, smug for getting up early. He’d like to see how Stella would do surviving a post-apocalyptic landscape.

“I was _thinking,_ ” Klaus says pointedly, snapping his fingers to get Five’s attention, “that I could get a job at the garden centre down the street. You know, help plant stuff.” He picks up Stella and strokes her pot. “Lend them my green thumb.”

Five sighs, reaching across the table to grab his empty coffee mug and Klaus’s water. The water he pours on Stella, inciting an indignant “Hey!” from Klaus, and then puts it in the sink with the empty mug. “Klaus, you realize you’ve only ever actually taken care of one plant in your entire life, and that’s Stella?”

“Yeah, but she _loves_ me,” Klaus pouts, holding Stella up to his face. “Don’t you, sweetheart?”

“Don’t call her sweetheart,” Five mutters. “She doesn’t like it.” Before Klaus can argue the point, he changes tack. “What does Ben think about the garden centre?”

“What do you think, Ben?” Klaus hollers, not bothering to turn to face wherever Ben is, not that Five can be sure he isn’t already looking Ben’s way. There’s a few beats of intensely awkward silence of Five’s end as he assumes Klaus is listening to whatever Ben has to say, then Klaus scowls and sets Stella down on the counter a little harder than necessary. “He doesn’t have an opinion. _Traitor!_ ,” the last part is hollered in Five’s general direction, almost making him jump.

“What? Why not?” Five asks. “Didn’t you say he was-,”

“95% of my impulse control? Yes,” admits Klaus, “but that was mostly because he was always trying to stop me from getting high. Now that I’m clean, he says he’s busy with something.”

Five frowns. “What can a ghost be busy with? No offense,” he adds hastily, trying to look in every corner of the room, and wondering if Ben’s even still there.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve no idea,” says Klaus blithely, picking up Stella again and cradling her like a baby. “Do you think Stella will grow any more flowers? This one’s dying.”

“Do I look like I know?” Five snaps, but he’s noticed Stella’s oddly-shaped flower growing yellow and it worries him, too. He’ll have to google it later. “Anyway, how’d you find out about this garden centre place?”

“I went for a walk this morning, while you were still in bed,” Klaus says casually, and Five bristles at the thought of having to discuss being carried to bed by his little brother. “They had a sign out.”

Five considers it. It might be a good idea for Klaus to get a job, to have something in his life other than the never-ending battle to stay clean. God knows Five wishes he could get a job someplace, but the only way he’s getting hired is as a preteen or a teen. If he ever wants to have any sort of career, he’s going to have to go to high school or even post-secondary, Five realises with growing horror. Horror seems to be his default emotion when musing on any sort of future he might have, so he redirects his thoughts to Klaus instead. “You should apply,” he concedes.

Klaus shoves Stella at Five so abruptly that he almost drops her. “Jesus!” he hisses, and glares at Klaus. “You almost dropped her. _Never_ have a child.”

“Love you too, bro,” Klaus hollers, backing out the door, _Hello_ and _Goodbye_ flashing at Five as he disappears out the door, presumably to apply to the centre.

Five looks down at Stella, cradled in his arms. He cranes his heck to make sure Klaus is leaving, and waits for the tell-tale sound of the door closing behind him to sink back down into a kitchen chair and set Stella in front of him.

“Here’s hoping this doesn’t end in disaster,” he mutters, and closes his eyes, resting his forehead on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plz comment and let me know what you think  
> or come scream at me on tumblr (@dailyplantpics)


	9. Deja Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ah, shit.” Five mutters, and coughs up blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG GUYS I have been receiving the absolute LOVELIEST COMMENTS EVER FROM YOU  
> it makes me so happy when you guys tell me your theories and what you like  
> also people are writing HEADCANONS for this fic in the comments?? I don't deserve this????????/ *explodes w/ happiness*  
> ALSO can I just say I AM SO GLAD PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO APPRECIATE STELLA, SHE IS A QUEEN WHO DESERVES THE WORLD

So, Klaus has a job.

It’s not a very prestigious one; he’s a clerk at Tumbleweed’s Garden Centre, about a block away from home. Five spends Klaus’s first day at work running up and down the iron staircase until his legs ache and he’s soaked through with sweat. He isn’t sure what he’s training for, but he can’t exactly just sit there alone and do nothing.

Finally, he finds himself standing in the kitchen, staring at Stella, who’s sitting on the kitchen table looking exceedingly judgemental.

“What?” Five pants, and stomps upstairs to change into something less sweaty.

Once he’s done, he does his laundry and cleans. Aggressively.

By the time he’s finished, he’s angry. Really angry. He wants to hit something. He wants to kill something. He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, almost _vibrating_ , hands curled so tight into fists his fingernails are cutting into his palms.

The second day Klaus is at work, he goes out and buys a punching bag. The first day he uses the punching bag, he forgets to wrap his fists and both them and the punching bag are bloody by the time Klaus comes home.

Five doesn’t come down until he’s cleaned both the punching bag and his hands. He doesn’t have anything to wrap his hands in, so he keeps his hands curled into fists downstairs in the hope that Klaus won’t notice.

It doesn’t work. Klaus notices almost right away, and goes all soft and worried like he did that night with Stella. It makes Five want to melt into him, so he glares at him and snarls at him to stay away. To his credit, Klaus listens, though Five can’t help but feel resentful as he does.

He ends up taking Stella to his room with him and staring at her until he falls asleep.

The third day, he buys bandages and wraps his wrists. It hurts more than the first day, seeing that his knuckles are worn to shreds. He keeps going anyways.

He starts taking Stella with him every night just to put her on his nightstand. It’s comforting not to be alone at night.

Five days in, he starts talking to her. It helps for a while, but on the fourth day he calls her Delores by accident. It hurts so much that he starts leaving her at home altogether.

Klaus, on the other hand, has never looked happier. He comes home each day with dirt under his nails and a smile on his face, and Five is happy for him. He is, it’s just… hard. Because Five has this urge, this drive to _do something._ He’s used to survival. He’s used to bounty hunting. He’s used to fighting against the clock to stop the apocalypse.

He has no idea how to deal with… whatever this is.

So he punches, and trains, and watches combat videos on something called YouTube. He gets stronger while Klaus gets happier, and evenings he sits at the kitchen table and drinks coffee while Klaus fiddles with Stella and rambles on about how soon he thinks she’ll grow new flower stalks.

Two weeks in, Klaus pauses mid-monologue about the differences between moon, fishhook, and balloon cacti and stares at Five, who is just about done his mug of coffee. “Come _on,_ man,” he whines, trying to lean across the table and almost knocking Stella over. He leans back, slides Stella to the side and lunges across the table, grabbing Five’s mug from his hands. “Hey!” Five protests, but Klaus is already pouring it down the sink.

“You can’t drink coffee at _night,_ ” Klaus says, dropping the empty mug in the sink.

“Would you rather I drink vodka?” Five tries to counter, but Klaus shuts him down by pointing out that the only way he’s getting his hands on alcohol is if Klaus buys it for him. The next day, when Klaus comes home from work, he brings home a giant tub of white tea.

“I asked for the strongest thing they had,” Klaus says proudly, and then Five points out that the tea has twice the caffeine of a single cup of coffee, which is a mistake because Klaus takes it back immediately and replaces it with something caffeine-free. Five still refuses to drink it, so Klaus starts making mugs of it and leaving them all over the apartment. “Psychological warfare,” he explains to Five as he makes another pot of tea.

In the end, Five gives in, not because he agrees with Klaus, but because it physically hurts to see food or drink go to waste. He blames it on being constantly in survival mode, but says nothing to Klaus for fear of being empathized with.

Klaus’s first paycheck arrives three weeks in, and Klaus being Klaus, he first buys eyeliner and then donates the rest of it back to Tumbleweed’s.

 

The punching helps at first, but Five gets used to it in a few weeks. He can’t punch hard enough or fast enough for it to make a difference, and the more he does it the longer it takes him to get tired. So six weeks after Klaus starts his job, Five blinks for the first time since what he still thinks of as the apocalypse. He only does it from the top of the stairs to the bottom, but it twists his stomach, fulfils some twinge in him that the punching bag hasn’t been able to for a while now.

So he blinks again, and again, and again, faster and faster, from the upper corner of the apartment to the lower opposite corner, until he’s dizzy and lightheaded. He keeps going, challenging himself to try and change directions by blinking in the split-second between where he is and where he’s blinking.

The next thing he knows, he’s lying in the middle of the store. There’s something wet and thick- blood, he deduces- trickling across his face from his nose, and he can hear the sound of the front door closing in the distance as Klaus returns from work.

“Ah, shit.” Five mutters, and coughs up blood.

 

Klaus takes a week off work. It’s completely unnecessary. He also makes Five stay in bed for three days, which is just inhumane. By the third day, Five is a wreck, a pulsing ball of nervous energy, a time bomb. Klaus takes one look at him and declares him off bed rest.

As soon as he’s up, Five’s first instinct is to go at his punching bag. (Maybe if he stops wrapping his knuckles, it’ll go back to being cathartic again.) His second instinct is to blink again, even though it left him feeling hollow and empty and nauseous. Even though he spent a couple hours apparently scaring the shit out of Klaus by coughing up blood and convulsing.

Unfortunately, Klaus is still at home, which means the best Five can do is pace restlessly around the house, up the stairs and down. After about an hour Klaus picks Stella up and tries following him, but he runs out of breath from running up and down the stairs. Five is perfectly happy to leave him in his dust, but Klaus is gripping the railing with one hand trying to catch his breath, which means Stella is perched precariously on another shaking hand.

Five takes Stella and climbs downstairs to sit at the kitchen table. Klaus follows him a few minutes later.

They sit there, both staring at Stella, for what feels like an eternity, until Klaus breaks the silence. “Stella thinks you’re an idiot.”

Five snorts. Of course she does. Smug little Stella with her smug little ceramic pot and smug single wilting flower.

Klaus’s tone softens. “And Ben thinks you’re hurting.”

Now _that_ makes Five bristle.

“Five-,”

“ _What,”_ Five snaps, and Klaus flinches just a little. Stella glares at him. _Well, that’s just unfair,_ Five thinks to himself. _They’re ganging up on me._

“I’m _fine,_ ” he insists, and immediately regrets it. It makes him think of that night-

Klaus shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Look, Five, I know what you’re doing-,”

“You don’t know _anything,_ ” Five snarls, and Klaus’s eyes harden in a way Five has never seen them harden before.

(It strikes Five that he has never actually seen his brother get really, truly angry.)

“Don't I?” Klaus asks quietly. “Are you saying I don’t know what it’s like to feel lost and empty? To destroy yourself to distract yourself from how empty everything is? To get used to the high and find yourself spiralling down a rabbit hole looking for more? Klaus’s voice rises as he speaks. "Don't I know what it’s like to push yourself just to feel something? To use too much and find yourself in some hospital bed or the back of some ambulance-,” 

There are a few seconds once Klaus's words have faded into a whisper and then to silence during which Five understands more about his brother than he has ever understood about anyone, even Stella or Delores.

Turns out Five and his little brother have more in common than he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> feel free to come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	10. Stella Decides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus, Five thinks to himself, is making a surprising amount of sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which Stella is an ABSOLUTE ANGEL and SAVES THE DAY  
> thank you all so so much for your comments, they are lovely and always inspire me to write

Five isn’t sure what do to with the information that he may have accidentally formed a pseudo-drug habit. It almost makes him laugh. Instead he drags Stella across the table towards him and stares at her up close. She stares back, impassive.

It’s unsettling.

When he finally musters the courage to look up, Klaus is fixing him with an intense stare that is un-Klaus-like it almost cows him. Five squares his shoulder and stares back, hard, and Klaus immediately softens just enough to avoid conflict while remaining resolute. It makes Five want to scream. It makes him want to fight, and Five realises that at some point his hands have curled themselves into tight fists.

Klaus sighs. “Look-,” he leans forward and scrubs his face with _Hello_ and _Goodbye._ “The punching bag- you gotta be careful with it, okay? Here, give- give me your knuckles.” Klaus gestures across the table with his right hand, extending a _Hello._

Five glares darkly at Klaus and then sits on his hands. (It’s a mistake, and makes him wince. He hopes Klaus doesn’t notice.)

Klaus sighs and lets his hand drop onto the table. The legs of the kitchen chair scrape on the hardwood as he stands, and Five watches him go, feeling strangely disappointed.

He comes back, though, holding a first-aid kit Five only vaguely remembers buying and opens it up on the table. “All right. Give me your knuckles, _now_.”

Five looks at _Hello,_ briefly considers resisting, and then slides his hands across the table.

“It bugs me that I have nothing to do,” Five finally admits quietly as Klaus rubs Vaseline over his knuckles and wraps cotton fabric around them. He chances a glance up at Klaus. “You know?”

Klaus frowns. “No, I don’t.”

Five is lost, and it must show, because Klaus goes on, “Look at yourself. You’re a mess, Five, just like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It _means,_ ” Klaus half-laughs, finishing Fives’ second knuckle and leaning backwards with his arms spread, “that we both a have a to-do list three miles long of personal insecurities, phobias, and trauma, many of the courtesy of our very own dearly departed father, to fix. Why not get started on that?”

Five slides his left thumb over his bandaged right knuckle and thinks about it.

Klaus, Five thinks to himself, is making a surprising amount of sense.

 

They make a list.

Two lists, actually, One for Klaus, and one for Five. Klaus initially suggests a therapist, but once Five points out that whoever they go to will probably label Klaus as schizophrenic and Five as a delusional child (neither of which he is).

The lists are Klaus’s idea. Both of them are in the kitchen, Klaus cross-legged on the counter and Five at the table. Stella sits on the kitchen table. According to Klaus, this is supposed to be something like a to-do list of things they need to fix about themselves.

Klaus starts scribbling almost immediately. Five, on the other hand, spends what feels like hours staring at his piece of paper.

He looks up away from the paper at last and is met with Stella’s firm gaze.

_Come on,_ she seems to be saying. It’s stern and gentle and persistent and a little judgemental, but still kind.

Stella stands tall and proud. Her single wilted flower is lying at the bottom of her stalks, in the soil of the pot. Five picks it out and walks over to the sink, where Klaus is using a small plastic bucket as a compost bin. He drops it in and walks back to his chair. Klaus looks up, and Five shoots him a small smile to reassure him that he isn’t backing out.

Five stares at his paper again when he sits down. He picks idly at the bandages on his knuckles until Stella gives him an admonishing look that makes him feel so guilty he picks up the pencil and writes _self-destruction_ at the top of the paper.

 

“Not bad,” Klaus says, reading through Five’s list as Five scans his. “But you missed something.”

Five hums, looking up. He’s sitting on the counter now, and Klaus is sitting, somewhat awkwardly, in Five’s wooden chair. (“It’s important for us to get into each other’s head-spaces, Five.”) “What’s that?”

“Isolation.” Klaus grabs Five’s deserted pencil and scribbles it in at the bottom. “When’s the last time you left this place? Who's the last person you talked to who wasn't me?”

Five scowls. “I don’t like going outside. Or people.”

“Start with the backyard,” Klaus suggests, and Five realises that he’d completely forgotten they even had one. He shrugs, picking up Klaus’s list.

Klaus is pretty spot on about _his_ issues, and some of his wording makes Five suspect that Klaus may have been to a couple therapy sessions at some point during his life. Right now, Five’s favourite human Ouija board is bouncing his leg idly, picking at his lips and carefully reading a list of his older brother’s personal issues.

If anyone had told Five a few years ago, or even a few weeks ago, that his former-junkie medium brother would turn out to be a pretty good therapist, he would have clocked them in the face. 

Finally, Klaus seems to be satisfied with his filtering of Five’s list, and he drops it onto the table. “All right,” he sighs. “I guess this is good a time as any to say this.”

Five frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I almost relapsed yesterday.”

Five slides off the counter, feeling sick. “Klaus-,”

“I said _almost_ ,” Klaus says quietly, waving _Goodbye._ “I didn’t. It’s just, I had my wallet, with my card, and I was passing an ATM, and I don’t even know what triggered it, but it just made me think. I haven’t seen Ben in a few days. He keeps disappearing these days, and I haven’t been able to summon Dave again, and I have no idea where Vanya’s ghost is-,”

“You can talk to Vanya’s ghost?” Five asks, feeling dizzy.

“No. Well, I might- I don’t _know_ ,” Klaus sighs. “I’ve been poking around, trying to see if I could find her, but it’s-,” he shudders. “And especially without Ben-,”

“Maybe,” starts Five, and then stops.

Klaus looks at him curiously. “What?”

Five reaches backward, sliding his hands self-consciously along the counter. “Maybe you should go to a meeting. AA, or whatever it is addicts go to.” He cringes, hearing the last sentence come out of his mouth. “Sorry, that was harsh.”

“No, no. That’s what I am.” Klaus blows out a breath, then laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Wow, look at us, right? Talking things out, making plans like responsible adults!”

Five manages to huff out a laugh. “I _am_ an adult, Klaus.”

“Well, so am I. _Technically,_ ” Klaus tacks on at Five’s raised eyebrow. He clears his throat and his face grows serious. “But you might be right. About AA. Be hard to explain why I got into drugs, though,” he muses, and Five crosses his arms across his chest. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“What do you mean by that?” Klaus asks, turning to face him, resting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin on _Goodbye_.

Five shrugs self-consciously, unfolding his arms to pick at his bandages. Klaus makes a hurt noise at that and waves his hand at him, and he stops. “Just that you probably won’t be the only person there with ghosts.”

Klaus hums noncommittally, then swivels his head on his hand to face Stella. “Stella, I’m undecided. Do I go to AA or not?”

Stella is regally majestic on the table, infinitely superior to the two Hargreeves brothers. The two stare at her for a minute. Finally, Klaus groans. “Fine, I’ll go. Jeez, you don’t have to be so pushy.”

“Yes, she does,” Five counters. “She’s the most sensible one here."

Klaus raises his head off his hand and smiles at him. It feels strange on his face, but Five smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	11. Many More Sunrises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t know what you mean, Hawaii Five-o,” says Klaus, throwing his old Hawaiian shirt at Five. Five catches it and stares at Klaus as he keeps folding, wishing for the words to say what he means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your lovely comments, they really make my day and inspire me!  
> unrelated, but i had to rewrite this entire chapter after i previewed it cause I wasn't feeling it.

They spend the rest of Klaus’s week off gravitating awkwardly around each other, neither wanting to seem needy, but both needing each other, or at the very least to be in the same room.

After their brief spell of seriousness in the past days, Klaus seems to revert by default to jokes and flippancy regarding… well, everything. Five kind of wishes he would stop, wishes he would let on when he’s venting just how upset whatever it is he’s discussing makes him, so Five can at least _try_ to help, but the moment Five makes any overtures at serious conversations Klaus brushes it off with a joke and a grin.

The worst part is listening to Klaus’s jokes slowly grow more and more desperate and self-deprecating as time goes on and Five learns about Klaus’s past. He learns about what it was like after he left. He learns more than he ever wanted to know, but it seems like it helps Klaus, so he listens.

Or rather, it seems like it _should_ help Klaus. Instead, Klaus seems to grow more and more desperate and quiet as time goes on, and Five doesn’t know how to tell him that he doesn’t have to do this. He doesn’t have to make everything into a joke. He doesn’t have to avoid eye contact when he’s talking and make fun of himself. Five wants to say all that and more, but he doesn’t know how, so he doesn’t, and watches Klaus grow quieter and quieter.

“You don’t have to do this,” he finally blurts out one day as they fold laundry, and Klaus immediately tenses up. And damn it, Five can tear down a fully grown man in under five seconds but he can’t make his brother talk to him and he hates himself for it.

“Don’t know what you mean, Hawaii Five-o,” says Klaus, throwing his old Hawaiian shirt at Five. Five catches it and stares at Klaus as he keeps folding, wishing for the words to say what he means.

He glances at Stella, who is sitting on the floor beside him, for help, but it’s futile. Stella may be wonderful, but she’s not exactly the best authority on spoken communication.

Still, at least Klaus is talking. Five makes an extra effort after that, to listen. He sits as close to Klaus as possible when he starts talking about this kind of thing, even though his instinct is to be on his guard, to keep everyone, even his own brother, at arm’s length, far enough to be able to hold a defensive position. It seems to help at least a little. Five figures this way if Klaus needs someone to hold on to, some human touch to ground him, he won’t have to ask for it out loud.

He tries to show Klaus that he doesn’t need to be so flippant about everything. He starts taking everything Klaus says seriously, down to the last detail.

He does his best and hopes it’s working.

He learns about the things Klaus did sometimes for drugs, and feels his throat close up and bile rise to his mouth. The second time he gets Klaus to vent to him, Klaus has to stop and rush out of the room to vomit twice in the middle of it. The first time he does it, it’s so unexpected Five just sits there awkwardly and waits for Klaus to return.

Stella expresses her disapproval of  _that_  choice to him  _very_  clearly, and the second time he follows Klaus to the bathroom and spends about fifteen minutes rubbing slow circles into Klaus’s back.

 

It’s hard to predict when something will affect Klaus like this. He still doesn’t seem to have been able to shake his habit of making everything out to be a joke.

It’s not only bad things he hears about, though. The last day before Klaus is due to go back to work, Klaus spends going on and on about someone named Dave.

Five pieces together that Dave was someone Klaus met when he time-travelled and that he was pretty much hopelessly in love with him because of the way Klaus absolutely melts every time he brings him up.

 

It doesn’t surprise Five that Klaus is into guys. He’s been out of the loop for a considerably long time, but somewhere along the course of killing people and covertly calculating how to travel back in time, he figured out that many, many things he was taught were wrong. He’ll be the first to admit that it took a while to shake the ideas good old Reggie Hargreeves planted in his head. He’ll admit that the whole “love is love” idea took a while to catch on in his head.

 

Five grew in a household where love was a commodity, a luxury. It was something available in short supply, something to chase at night in the dark. It was something you hid away, something you felt when you were alone, something you dreamt about. Then you woke up and you got to training and killing and fighting, always fighting, fighting, fighting.

 

It wasn’t until he met Delores that he realised that love was more than just a luxury. Five doesn’t think he would have survived those years without her. Still, the idea of out-and-proud love, especially one between two partners who weren’t a man and woman, took a while to hit him.

 

Yes, Five has been out of the loop for a while. He doesn’t understand a lot of the stuff he reads about. He doesn’t really understand how being transgender works or what pansexual means or why there are so many acronyms. He’s old, and to be honest he doesn’t really care what society has decided to call it for the present moment. “Love” is good enough for him, and his brother looks happier talking about Dave than he looks talking about anything else, so he doesn’t see how anyone can possibly see their relationship as less than beautiful.

 

If anyone has a problem with that, Five has a butter knife he’d like to introduce to their jugular.

 

Of course, talking about Dave inevitably leads to talking about the war- and Five is still having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that  _his brother fought in the Vietnam war-_  which is decidedly a Bad Thing. So listening to Klaus soapbox, whether about the good or the bad, is emotionally and physically draining and undeniably hard.

It’s worth it, though, because Klaus starts finding Five wherever he is- at the punching bag, sitting at the kitchen, hovering near the backyard door- and letting loose a steady stream of consciousness on him.

(Five would never admit it, but he finds it strangely comforting.)

That’s not to say that Klaus is the only one getting better. The next morning, Five makes more of the god-awful coffee he’s bought and feels the need to finish the moment he wakes up and goes to drink it in the backyard.

It’s uncomfortable, but Five can feel his jagged psyche poking at something that could for lack of a better name be called contentment, just out of reach. The sky is beautiful. It does remind him of sunset, but it’s different somehow. Maybe because it makes Five realise that although he’s going have to watch thousands more sunsets, he’s also going to watch thousands more sunrises, and maybe waking up won’t be so bad after all.

Klaus sometimes starts going all therapist on Five, and it’s in one of these psycho-analysing word vomits that he diagnoses him with “conflict-addiction,” a term Five is 95% sure he made up. It’s oddly apt, though. The more Five thinks about it, the more he realises that his default setting does seem to be combat mode.

So they spend the four days gravitating awkwardly and then more comfortably around each other. They’re moving beyond the awkward-roommate-sibling stage, and since Five stated his opinion that Stella is smarter and more sensible than either of them will ever be, Klaus has become insistent on Stella joining them for everything.

“You couldn’t even stand her at first,” Klaus teases him. “You didn’t even want to take her in. You were ready to turn down the whole place to avoid taking care of her!”

Five scowls at him, and Klaus laughs and pushes Stella across the table. Stella slides to a stop in front of him, and gazes at him.  _It’s okay,_ she seems to be saying.  _I pretty much though you were a little bitch from the moment I met you, too._

“You’re alright,” he mutters to her when Klaus isn’t around, and pats her edge of her pot awkwardly. It’s probably just his imagination, but it seems to Five that she leans towards him just the tiniest bit when he says it.

Klaus goes to his first AA meeting the same day he goes back to work. He tells Five ahead of time about it, and comes home tired and quiet. They have a couch now, set up in the sitting room upstairs, and Five finds Klaus on it that evening. He’s lying down, head propped up against the pillows, and Stella sits on his stomach, regal as ever. Her two new flowers are flourishing.

Five lifts Klaus’s calves off the sofa to make room for him to sit, but the moment he’s sitting Klaus throws his legs onto Five’s lap. It’s uncomfortable, but Five doesn’t protest.

Five looks over at Klaus. He’s picking at his nails and Five can tell he’s about to ruin his nail polish, so he swats Klaus’s hands and Klaus moves to gently stroke Stella’s leaves between his thumb and forefinger instead. They sit there in silence for a few minutes until Klaus speaks up. “There were a lot of ghosts at AA.”

“Fuck,” Five swears. “Was it-?”

“No, it was fine,” Klaus says softly, “relatively, at least.” It’s the most serious he’s sounded about anything since they made the lists that are currently tacked up on the fridge with rainbow magnets, and Five holds his breath, fearful that if he makes one wrong move Klaus will slip back into his easy dismissal of himself. He picks Stella up off his stomach and wriggles into a sitting position. Legs crossed, he places her in his lap and stares down at her.

“You were right,” he finally says, “about other people having ghosts."

Five doesn't know what to say to that. He's never been an addict, never gone to a meeting, never even dabbled in therapy or anything of the sort beyond the lists they made, which are tacked up against the fridge now with rainbow magnets (courtesy of Klaus.) It strikes him that he's totally, completely out of his depth here, and yet that he's going to have to help with a lot of Klaus's list because he's the only person Klaus has who genuinely knows what Klaus has gone through and will take him seriously, except maybe Ben.

The truth is that Five will never really understand what it's like to be Klaus and Klaus will never really understand what it's like to be Five and Five has no idea how they're supposed to take that and work with it to produce something even mildly like stability. The only link they really have is Stella, who is wonderful, but who is still a plant.

Outside, the sun is setting, but Five barely notices. They’ve got a lot of trauma to work through.

Maybe it’s a good thing, then, that Five has all the time in the world.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you thought!  
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics
> 
>  


	12. The Prodigal Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, I’m sorry,” Klaus splutters indignantly. “You try waking up to see an old man who’s supposed to be in France standing by the edge of your bed!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am LOVING that you guys keep commenting, each time, without fail! It really makes me feel good and write better and faster.

The next day, Five wakes up at six A.M feeling drowsy and oddly content.

The house is silent, and Five takes a few seconds to lie in bed. His eyelids are heavy, but he’s not sleepy enough to actually drop off.

He lies there, and focuses on keeping his mind blank of anything even mildly real. His mind drifts, floats in fluffy clouds through the sky. The walls of 1615 Church fall down around him and gravity ceases to exist as he floats up through what was once the ceiling into the sky. He floats, floats, floats…

…and is brought abruptly back down to Earth by a shrill scream from Klaus’s room.

For a second Five is frozen, paralyzed; then years of experience kick in and he’s throwing off the covers, blinking into Klaus’s room ready to fight, only to find the room empty save for Klaus.

Klaus is staring wide-eyed at the wall opposite him, chest heaving. He’s sitting up in bed, blankets clutched up around his neck, hair a mess and eyes still bleary with sleep.

“What? _What?_ ” Five hisses at him, but Klaus doesn’t seem to notice him standing there. Instead he groans, letting go of the blankets and sliding back down onto the bed. “ _Jeez,_ Dharun, maybe _warn_ a guy?”

For a second, Five is completely, utterly lost; then he gets it. “Is Dharun’s ghost here?”

Klaus finally notices his very small, very angry, very stressed, very old brother standing by his bed and sighs. “Yup,” he says, popping the p.

“ _Jesus,_ Klaus,” Five hisses, running a hand through his hair. “I thought you were being murdered!”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Klaus splutters indignantly. “You try waking up to see an old man who’s supposed to be in France standing by the edge of your bed! No offense,” he adds with a cursory glance towards where Five presumes Dharun is standing.

Five sighs, relaxing just a little. He still feels like he’s been electrocuted with jumper cables, and he’d be lying if he said the sudden blink after just waking up didn’t make him feel a little nauseous. “So the old guy finally kicked it, huh,” he mutters, gazing around the room.

Klaus sits up and slaps him on the arm. “Hey, show some respect. He’s right here,” he says, gesturing towards the end of bed.

Five looks. Predictably, he sees nothing. He almost rolls his eyes at Klaus, before remembering this is exactly the kind of thing Klaus has issues with. “I _know,_ ” he grouches instead, rubbing his arm. “Sorry, Dharun.”

Klaus looks so fucking grateful to Five for believing him straightaway that it’s almost painful and Five has to look away.

“So, what’s he doing here?” Five asks, hoping to move the conversation along. Klaus scratches his head sleepily, messing his hair up even more. “I don’t know. Let me ask him.” He turns towards what looks to Five like empty space, and Five has that same eerie feeling of knowing someone’s there without seeing them. It unsettles him, not being able to see who’s in the room with him. Now that he thinks about it, it’s probably from that same conflict-addiction Klaus was talking about. He’s always in combat mode, and the last thing you want in a violent situation is to not be able to see the enemy.

Logically, Five knows that Ben isn’t the enemy, and neither is Dharun, but still.

“Five-o? You okay?” Five snaps back to reality with Klaus snapping his fingers a little ways in front of his face. He clears his throat. “Yeah, sorry, what?”

“He’s back to see Stella.” Klaus slides out of bed, padding over to the closet, and Five moves towards the door, slipping outside and leaning backwards on the hallway wall beside Klaus’s bedroom door to give him some privacy.

“So how does this whole ghost thing work?” he calls over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t Dharun be in France?”

“You know, I don’t know,” Klaus answers, his voice briefly muffled (as he puts on a shirt, Five assumes.)A grunt and a thud and the rustling of fabric, then he goes on. “I never really explored the whole ghost thing, being, you know, high and all.” A series of high-pitched thuds as the closet doors slam shut, then Klaus stumbles out the door, still looking foggy with sleep.

“Aw, man, I need to take a leak,” he whines, rubbing his eyes and stretching. Five eyes his whereabouts warily. “Does that mean Dharun’s gonna come with you?”

Klaus stops stretching, squints and frowns. “I hadn’t thought of that. Huh. Well, maybe he can just wait outside. What do you think, pal?” He stumbles towards the bathroom and makes what looks like a feeble attempt at clapping Dharun on the shoulder before realising that Dharun’s a ghost and almost falling on his face. Klaus twirls semi-gracefully to recover and almost bangs head-first into the door frame on his way into the bathroom.

Five goes downstairs to wait for them.

 

“So how does this work, again?”

They’re sitting at the kitchen table, which is where they seem to default to now for serious conversations; Five, Klaus, presumably Dharun, and maybe Ben. Five had been about to start the conversation the moment Klaus came down the stairs, but then he remembered Stella and dipped out to grab her, setting her on the kitchen table. She’d kill him if he left her out of this, and he wouldn’t blame her. She’s part of whatever this weird, dysfunctional alliance the three of them have forged is called.

Klaus leans back in his chair and blows out a breath. “What part do you want to know about?”

“How about you tell me everything?” Five suggests, and Klaus huffs something that falls just short of a laugh. “Well, that’s kind of a lot, Five-o. Mind narrowing it down a little?”

“Fine. Is Dharun here?”

“He is,” Klaus nods.

“And Ben?”

Klaus frowns. “Not at the moment, no. It’s kind of weird, actually. He’s been popping in and out a lot lately. He says he’s busy with something, but he won’t say what.”

“Alright, next question.” Five leans forwards, and his chair creaks. He crosses his arms on the table and frowns in concentration. “That night in the Icarus theatre-,”

Klaus flinches, almost imperceptibly, and Five can’t really blame him. It’s painful, even to him. Still, he needs to know, so he pushes on. “That night in the Icarus theatre, I _saw_ Ben.”

“Yeah,” Klaus mutters, kicking at the table leg.

“Is that what he looked like to you all the time? All blue, and… with his tentacles?”

“Nah, he just looks normal.” Klaus glances around the room, and Five can’t tell if he’s avoiding eye contact or making eye contact with someone Five can’t see. “All right. So no blue, ghostly glow, just… Ben.”

“Yeah.”

It’s a lot to process, and Five has to lean back to give himself some room to digest all of it. His eyes meet what feels like Stella’s, and they have a moment of profound understanding.

Ben. Fucking _Ben._

Five hasn’t seen him in decades.

When they were all kids, Ben was one of Five’s favourites, namely because he didn’t ask stupid questions. He had a quiet wisdom that went strangely well with Five’s sharp cleverness, and while they were similar in the most basic ways, the deeper you went the more differences you found. Five used to think of it as them being on the opposite ends of the same spectrum. They didn’t read together, or fight together; but they often found themselves content to peacefully coexist as different organisms within the same ecosystem. Five filled up pages and pages with scribbles and calculations Ben could never hope to understand while Ben read Chekhov or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky right beside him, and when Ben curled up into a ball in the tub after missions to cry, Five sometimes wiped off the blood in the places he could reach. They each had a comfortable groove carved out for the other by each other’s side, and in times of crisis they tended to slide back into those same familiar grooves.

Five shakes his head to dispel the fog of thoughts beginning to settle in his skull and bog him down. “Do you think you could…? I mean, is there any way _I_ could see Dharun?”

Klaus’s eyes flick from him to a spot beyond Five’s shoulder, and it takes every ounce of self-restraint Five has not to turn in his seat.

“May-be.” Klaus finally says slowly, shifting in his seat. His arms, which are crossed in front of him, twitch and Five swears his hands glow blue for a millisecond.

“I could try,” Klaus offers, and Five swallows, then nods.

Klaus takes a second, blows out a breath and blinks a few times, then slowly uncrosses his arms, laying them out on the table. Palms up, he frowns in concentration, eyes closed, a ghostly blue aura Five dimly remembers from the theatre starts in his palms and spreads to his fingers and wrists.

Five holds his breath, trying to look in all directions at once without turning his head, trying desperately to predict where Dharun would appear.

Then a breeze rushes through the room, and Stella’s leaves and flowers seem to lift as one, and somewhere behind Five there’s a low, quiet _whoosh_ of air and a kindly voice.

“Your brother really wasn’t joking about seeing me again, Mr. Hargreeves.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> and/or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	13. Dhareturn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Define really,” Klaus answers cryptically. “Define here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your lovely comments! As always, you guys let me know your thoughts and theories and it cheers me up no end.   
> enjoy!

It’s the oddest feeling, seeing Dharun again.

Five had pretty much made his peace with the idea that he was never going to see Dharun again. Well, he muses as Dharun tips a ghostly hat to Klaus, smiling serenely, perhaps _made peace with_ isn’t the right turn of phrase. He’d received the news, processed it, chewed it up and spit it out.

Now Dharun’s standing in their kitchen, calm, chubby and complacent; he’s mostly blue and white, but if Five pays attention he can see other colours and hues among the flickering blue light. The brown of Dharun’s skin. The shocking white of his hair. The pale yellow of his button-down shirt and the dark blue of his corduroy vest. If Five squints, he can even see the pinstripe pattern on Dharun’s dark grey slacks and the detailing on his black leather shoes.

He’s not sure how to deal with the fact that he’s apparently back again.

“Now, if I may ask, my dear boy,” Dharun clears his ghostly throat and turns to Klaus, “If I’m correct, I’m not really _here._ ”

“Define really,” Klaus answers cryptically. “Define _here._ ”

Dharun chortles. “Well, I’ll take that as affirmation that I’m not alive, at least.”

Five watches Klaus’s face turn resigned and wonders how many times he’s had to explain to someone that they can’t go back. He wonders how other ghosts have taken the news. Did they blame him? Did they try and convince him to take them back? Did they spend hours screaming, hoping that someone would hear? Did they even believe him?

What’s it like being dead?

“No,” Klaus answers, sighing. “You’re not.

“Ah,” Dharun says simply, and folds his hands behind his back.

Klaus looks up at him curiously. “Is that it?”

Dharun turns to Klaus, looking completely oblivious. “Is what what?”

Klaus waves a hand feebly. “No screaming? No ‘there has to be some mistake?’? No ‘you’re insane?’?”

Five was right, then. Dharun frowns, shifting his feet on the floor. “Would you like me to scream? Would it help?”

Klaus winces. “God, no. Just- oh, never mind,” he grumbles.

Dharun looks like he’s about to say something, but then his eyes seem to fall on Stella and falters. He- walks? Drifts?- towards the table, extending a ghostly hand towards Stella, and Five isn’t really sure what he imagines and what’s real when it comes to Stella anymore, but it’s like Stella stretches a leaf out to meet him, just a little.

Klaus and Five sit in silence, both very pointedly avoiding eye contact or from looking at Dharun and Stella. Five likes to think Stella and them have grown familiar throughout this time, but he realises they’ve got nothing on the bond she shares with Dharun.

Five wonders if she still misses him, then checks himself. Of course she does.

“She’s doing well, she is,” Dharun comments eventually, startling Five, and apparently also Klaus, who jumps enough to shift the chair, scraping the legs across the floor. “You’ve taken good care of her.”

“She took good care of us,” says Klaus to Dharun, deadly serious. “It’s only fair that we return the favour.”

Dharun smiles, and Five can tell he knows exactly what Five means. Yeah, “he chuckles.” I’ve had her for four years now. Named her after my daughter, Stella.”

Klaus chuckles weakly. “Yeah, that’s… that’s fascinating. Look, I’m glad to see you and all, but do you think we could wrap this up?”

His voice trembles a little bit at the end, and Five glances back towards him to see what’s wrong and almost does a double take. Klaus is sweaty, his arms, muscles and hands trembling desperately as the bluish glow wrapping around them fades in and out.

“Fuck,” Five hisses. Klaus hasn’t looked this desperate since the early stages of his withdrawal. “Dharun, uh-,”

“It’s okay,” says Dharun, stepping back with a knowing smile. He manages to blow a kiss to Stella before he fades out of the picture.

Five watches carefully as the interlacing tendrils of ghostly blue intertwining Klaus’s fingers and wrists slowly ebb away, then shifts his focus to Klaus himself. The moment the ghostly blue glow disappears, Klaus slumps backwards in his chair, panting lightly. He looks exhausted.

“You okay?” Five asks carefully.

Klaus’s eyes slide shut, and he’s still not looking as he answers, a little out of breath. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“What happened?” Five asks, getting up and moving towards the cupboard. He opens the door of the first one to the left of the sink and pulls out a glass, filling it with water from the tap. He sets it on the table in front of Klaus and gently nudges Klaus’s shoulder. “Hey.”

Klaus jumps, eyes flicking open; noticing the glass of water, he picks it up and drains half of it in one gulp. “Thanks,” he says, voice hoarse, when he sets the glass back down again.

“No problem,” Five frowns. “What happened? Even summoning Ben and taking out all those gunmen at the Icarus-,”

Klaus winces, and waves a hand. “Look, could we maybe- maybe not talk about that- or talk about it less, or-,”

Five has no idea what to say to that. It’s only nine A.M., and in the span of a morning almost everything Five has grown comfortable with and learned to stop fighting has risen up and scattered into the air.

He tries not to think about it. Klaus says he gets “prickly” when he thinks too much.

“Okay,” says Five. He nods. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think   
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	14. Whodunit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus kicks his heels against the bed and pulls his left leg up to sit on his foot. “What do you want to know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for your wonderful comments! there is no better email to receive than "AO3: Comment on And Then There Was Five".  
> That said, buckle up. Here we fucking go.

Klaus and Five sit there for a torturous half an hour (28 minutes to be exact), Five scrambling for mental purchase as he slips down the sheer wall of lack of information separating him from putting the pieces of the puzzle together. Finally, Klaus sits straight up from his slumped position, eyes wide. “Shit! I’m late for work.”

His exclamation knocks gently against Five’s mental image of a sheer wall, just hard enough for it to shift around halfway out of his mental spotlight. He shakes his head. “Right. I’ll call you in sick.”

“What? No! I have to-,”

_“Figure this out?_ Yeah, _we_ do. Be right back.” Klaus looks like he’s going to resist, and for a moment Five is hopeful that he might, then he sighs and slumps back down again.

The call takes Five somewhere between five and ten minutes. He’s not really sure. He sleepwalks through it, then returns to the kitchen, where Klaus and Stella wait. “All right,” he says, clapping his hands. “Get up. We’re going to your room.”

One of Klaus’s eyebrows goes rogue and slides almost halfway up his forehead. “I’m honoured, but I prefer to keep it incest-free in the bedroom-,”

“No, you idiot,” Five growls, and rolls his eyes. “God.”

Klaus sniggers all the way up the stairs.

When they get to his room, Five shoves him onto the bed and Klaus starts sniggering again. “Oh, _Luther_!” he squeals. “I heard a rumor you were going to absolutely _ravish-_ ,”

“ _One more word,_ ” Five hisses, “and I will _eviscerate_ you.”

Klaus sniggers again, and Five eyes him warily. “Are you high?”

“No!” Klaus protests, suddenly serious, “this is just how I cope.”

Five decides to take his word for it.

Klaus kicks his heels against the bed and pulls his left leg up to sit on his foot. “What do you want to know?”

“How about we start with what the _hell_ happened back there?”

Klaus sighs. “There was another presence in the room.”

Alarm bells go off in Five’s head, not loud enough to distract him, but just loud enough to give him a little jolt and put him on high alert. His first thought is _Ben,_ and then _Vanya_ and then _Dave._ “Who?” he asks instead.

“I don’t know,” Klaus frowns. Five sighs. “All right, why would it matter if there was another ghost?”

“It wasn’t just a ghost, it- it was like something was tugging at him, trying to pull Dharun back to life.”

Five frowns. “Like another ghost.”

“No, no…” Klaus scrubs at his face with _Hello_ and _Goodbye._ “It was closer to me than him.” Seeing Five’s look of total confusion, he explains, “It was more alive than the ghosts usually are, but less alive than you or me… it was like…”

Klaus seems to struggle for a few moments to find the words to express what he’s trying to say, and Five has to make a conscious effort not to start listing off possible words. “It’s like it was possessing someone.

“But who would-,” it? They? “Who would it possess?” Five asks, his skin crawling. He resists the temptation to move his chair from the middle of the room to the left corner, which is backed on the other side by a 2-foot thick brick wall and has a clearer route to both the door and open window.

Klaus shrugs. “No idea. There’s no one else here.”

Five rubs his knuckles over his sleeves, trying to soothe the prickling in his arms. “All right. Why would it want to bring Dharun back?”

“Maybe it knew him when he was alive. You know, we _could_ just _ask_ him,” Klaus suggests, and Five uses it as an excuse to stand, feeling restless. “No. Absolutely not. No way.”

“Why not?” Klaus protests, and Five starts to pace. He realises he doesn’t really have a reason, but resisting scratches some of the bone-deep, ever-present itch in him so he keeps pushing back.

“Five, do you want to know the answer to this or not?” Klaus reasons. “I mean, there’s a puzzle here. Don’t you want to solve it?” And yeah, he does.

Five stops in his tracks, turning to stare out the window. He does want to solve the puzzle.

“You’re sure this- presence, or whatever- isn’t here now?” Five asks, just to be sure.”

“Scout’s honour,” Klaus promises, and Five sighs. “Alright.” He grabs his chair and pulls it across the floor to near Klaus’s perch on the bed.

It happens the same way it did yesterday: Klaus extends his bony arms and blue ropes wind themselves around each of his respective hands and wrists.

A flicker, a cold gust of wind that didn’t come from the window, and Dharun stood before them again.

“Hello, boys,” he says, unsurprised and complacent as ever.

“Dharun,” Five says quickly. “Listen. Can you think of anyone alive-or-dead who might want you brought back to life?”

Dharun smiles sadly. “Alive? No. everyone I’ve ever known, aside you two and Stella, is dead.”

“What about your daughter, the real Stella?” Klaus asks from behind Five, and Five whirls to face him.

To his surprise, Klaus looks… fine.

There’s no sign of struggle or difficulty, no sign of him having to make any sort of conscious effort to keep Dharun here.

“I told you,” he says to Five with a shrug and a half-smile, “there’s no-one else here.”

“My daughter….” Dharun’s smile wavers, and he looks down, suddenly serious. “She’s dead.”

“Oh, no,” Klaus says softly, and Five waits impatiently for the pleasantries and condolences to pass. He’s still got questions.

“What do you mean? I thought she was in France, studying business.”

“A couple days after I got there, um…” Dharun clears his throat. “There was an accident.”

Five’s mind is racing. Finally. Something to process. Everything since Vanya’s death has been mental cotton candy, as unsatisfying as biking on first gear. Now Five is on sixth gear, pedalling hard and with a hill to ride up and by god it’s _satisfying_.

“Alright,” Five begins pacing as Klaus offers further platitudes. So Stella’s dead. He turns, cutting Klaus off in the middle of a fumbled condolence. “Have you seen her as a ghost, either of you?”

Dharun shakes his head, and Five turns to Klaus, who shrugs again. “It’s been radio silence lately. I haven’t seen Ben, or Da- or anyone, actually.”

Five nods, mind pumping invisible pedals. As his metaphorical bike hits the hill and begins the ascent, his momentum wears off and his frantic pedalling grows slow, arduous, and carefully controlled. “So it’s not Stella.”

“I’m sorry, what are we talking about?” Dharun asks politely. Five opens his mouth to explain, but Klaus beats him to it. “Someone’s trying to bring you back. Someone not-dead, but not alive, either. Someone who’s floating in-between, somehow.”

“It has to be his daughter,” Five mutters. “It has to be. There’s no way it could be anyone else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think.  
> or come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	15. Whodunit Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Young lovers starting over,” Klaus says, sounding positively delighted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so so much for commenting on the last chapter!!!!!!!!!! I love you all x a 100000000. 
> 
> now are you ready to find out WHODUNIT? YUP it's THAT CHAPTER

“I don’t get it,” Five mutters. “I don’t get it.”

Five is very aware of Klaus and Dharun watching him pace and mutter to himself, and it’s pissing him off. He stops. “What?” he snaps at them and Klaus holds both arms up in a gesture of surrender. Dharun, for his part, merely smiles kindly at Five, which is both soothing and maddening. Five returns to his musing, trying to tune out the conversation the two are striking out in the background.

“So, Dharun,” Klaus asks, and Five hears the bed squeaking and fabric rustling as he makes himself comfortable, “you come here often?”

“I believe that would depend on whether or not you do, Mr. Hargreeves.”

(Five has two questions now. First of all, where is Stella’s ghost? Second of all, what was interfering with Dharun?

The obvious answer to him is that Stella’s ghost is _here_ , with them, interfering and trying to bring her father back. It’s clear the two really loved each other.

Five can’t relate at all.)

“Man, you are _so_ chill,” Klaus marvels in the background. “How do you do it?”

“Well, I’ve seen my fair share of miracles,” chuckles Dharun. “Not the least of which was my daughter, Stella.”

“Pray tell,” Klaus says, sounding genuinely interested.

(But, Five reasons with himself, if Stella’s ghost was here, Klaus would be able to sense her. Right? Right. He has to trust Klaus, and he does, he does, it’s just… if only he could check.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Klaus, specifically. But if you want a job well done…

Well. Maybe he can go on Klaus’s word, this one time.)

“When I was twenty, me and my wife-,”

A gasp from Klaus. “What was her name?”

“Ananya.” Dharun’s voice is soft. “Ananya Basak.”

“Awwww,” Klaus coos. “That’s such a pretty name.”

(So if Stella isn’t here, where is she? Back in France? It’s possible, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to Five.

Five wants to tear at his hair. It’s incredibly frustrating knowing almost nothing about the capabilities and limits of Klaus’s powers and not being able to poke and probe and explore them mercilessly.

It’s times like this Five wishes he wasn’t related to the Hargreeves; not because he doesn’t like them, but because he likes them too much to really hurt them and that slows him down. A lot.

Ugh. Stupid emotions.)

“Yes, we were very much in love, and I remember she would only marry me on condition that I give up smoking.”

“Really.”

“Yes, she was afraid that I would poison our future children with it.”

“She was already imagining having _kids_ with you?”

“That’s what _I_ teased her about! But yes. She had no shame about it. She tossed her head and lifted her chin and looked at me with this proud look on her face, and said, ‘I want to be a mother someday. If you don’t want to be a father, there’s no use in this thing at all.’”

“I like her already,” Klaus says, and he sounds like he’s smiling.

“I thought the same thing the second I met her,” Dharun replies shyly. “We moved here, to America, when we were twenty.”

“Young lovers starting over,” Klaus says, sounding positively delighted. Dharun chuckles.

(Five decides to set aside the whole motive thing for a second and examine who it _could’ve_ been. The only ghosts he knows that can visit Klaus for sure are Ben and Dharun. Neither of them know where Vanya disappeared to when she died, and Klaus hasn’t seen Dave in a while.)

“We lived in a tiny apartment, and it was hard, but when we were thirty-,”

“You bought this place! You told us this, when you were selling us the place.”

“Yes,” Dharun answers. “We used this place as a little convenience store. Ah, it was heaven. It was more than that, actually- it was home. But with money short, and both of us so focussed on the store, we forgot all about being parents.”

“Oh _no,_ ” Klaus says sadly.

(Five decides he needs to talk to Klaus before forming any more theories. Reluctantly, he takes a seat in his chair and waits impatiently for the two to finish their conversation, still only half-listening.)

“So when we were around forty-,”

“Wow,” Klaus interrupts. “You guys were really organized. You never made any major decisions without leaving a decade in between it and the last one.”

Dharun chortles. “Well, not quite. We were only around thirty-eight when we started trying to have children.”

“How long did it take?”

“Well, it never worked,” Dharun answers, and there’s something interminably sad in his voice. “We went to doctor after doctor- I got checked out and they said I was fine, but when it came to Ananya… something called unexplained fertility.”

“I’m so sorry,” Klaus says quietly.

“So am I,” Dharun says, “so am I. It almost broke Ananya. In fact, without Stella, it might have.”

“Stella was adopted, then?”

“She was,” Dharun says, smiling. “Our little Christmas miracle. We adopted her Christmas of 1989. The little darling was always so wonderful with plants, too.”

Klaus gasps. “That’s why you named our Stella after her!”

“That’s why!” Dharun laughs wetly, and he sounds more emotional than Five’s ever heard him. “Oh yes, Stella had a green thumb all right. More than that, actually. What she had was more than talent, it was like magic.”

“Really.”

“Really! You know, she was just five- Ananya had this little pot of rosemary in the living room, and it was dying. Root rot, you know.”

Klaus nods wisely. “I heard about it at work.”

“Yes. Well, Stella made it bloom. I don’t know how. I left her for a second to fetch something from the other room, and when I came back Stella was holding the rosemary, and it just looked a tiny bit different, a tiny bit healthier. So, I started taking Stella in to the rosemary every day, and each day it perked up a little, until it was growing beautifully. The strange thing is, the day after she left for college, it died again. Same root rot problem.”

“No!”

Something is beginning to tickle the edges of Five’s brain. Could it be?

“Yes! It was like magic, Mr. Hargreeves. She understood plants, Stella did. And the Stella you have, well… my Stella grew its mother. She named it Ananya.”

“That’s so sweet! Did Ananya cry?”

“I’m afraid that she, um… by that time…”

“Oh no,” Klaus says, and he genuinely sounds close to tears. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Dharun clears his throat. “I propagated Ananya the peace lily when she grew old and Stella-lily was born. My Stella was heartbroken to leave Stella-lily behind when she left for France. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason she was scared. She was twenty-six, and only just leaving for college! But after Ananya’s death, she stayed to help me with the store.

“Of course, I told her not to.  I told her to go. But she refused, and she was a grown woman I couldn’t make her. Although… I may not have tried as hard I should have.

“Stella-lily was like a part of her, you know. To be honest, I didn’t think it would bloom without her. You’ve worked wonders, Mr. Hargreeves.”

“Thank you!” Klaus exclaims, and Klaus lowers his voice. “I’m so sorry about your Stella, Dharun.”

Dharun sniffles. “So am I, Mr. Hargreeves. So am I.”

“Excuse me,” Five says finally, feeling a little dizzy with the implications of the theory he’s somehow managed to put together. The two turn to face him, and Five rises. “Dharun- did you say you adopted Stella in December of 1989?”

“Yes, I did,” frowns Dharun. “Why?”

“How old was she?” Five asks, feeling more light-headed by the second.

“Around two months and a half.”

Five sits down again heavily. No.

There’s _no_ way that-

That _can’t_ be a coincidence. He needs to be sure.

“Did they,” he pauses, “I mean, the adoption agency, did they tell you why she was up for adoption?”

“Yes,” Dharun sighs. “Rather a sad tale. Unplanned pregnancy. The mother was delusional, claimed to be a virgin, claimed she’d never had sex in her life; even denied having gotten pregnant.” Dharun shakes his head sadly. “Probably a good thing Stella didn’t stay with her.”

Klaus gasps from the other side of the room, and Five looks over. The brothers exchange meaningful glances, and then Five leans forward in his chair.

“So just to be sure,” he says, slowly, “and please think, Dharun, this is important; Stella, an unplanned pregnancy with a special gift, was born in October of 1989?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love a comment letting me know what you thought!  
> come scream at me on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	16. Out Of Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five and Klaus have a sister who is dead and possessing a plant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for commenting! I'm running out of new ways to say this, but it always makes me do a little happy dance when I see a new comment.
> 
> now that that's out of the way
> 
> welcome to the chapter where everything goes to shit

Five and Klaus have a sister who is dead and possessing a plant.

It’s a testament to how truly fucked-up their lives are that this seems like a perfectly logical explanation to the Hargreeves.

Dharun, true to his own testament, is only briefly thrown by the revelation that his daughter is possessing a plant and trying to bring him back to life. Klaus and Five go down to the kitchen and stand just outside the door so that Dharun can have a private conversation with Stella inside, during which Five muses more on this new turn of events. The more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes.

According to Dharun, Stella died around two days after his arrival in France; around the same time Stella-lily finally perked up and started blooming. (Turns out Five’s little speech didn’t really have much to do with it.) Assuming Stella’s gift was working with plants and how close she and Stella-lily seemed to be, Five suggests to Klaus that the reason Stella came to 1615 was because of the deep connection they had. “After all, Dharun did say it was almost like Stella-lily was a part of her.”

Klaus nods. “Like a Horcrux.”

“A what?”

“You don’t- of course you don’t. Movie night! Wait, actually, book club, _then_ movie night.”

Klaus’s struggle to summon Dharun the first time is also starting to make sense. The first time, Stella was in the room with them. The second, she was downstairs.

Five has succeeded. He’s figured it out. Everything makes sense, and there are no loose strings.

Five’s satisfied. He’s glad. He is. He _is._

Dharun walks out through the wooden door with wet eyes and a hoarse voice. “We spoke,” he said hoarsely. “She’ll stop resisting.”

“I knew she would,” Klaus says confidently. Five surreptitiously gives him a once-over to make sure summoning for so long isn’t draining him, and it doesn’t seem to be. “Stella’s more sensible than any of us will ever be.”

Dharun gives him a long side-eye.

“Other than you,” of course, Klaus correctly hastily, and Dharun nods, looking satisfied. “Klaus,” he says, “I wonder if we might speak in private.”

“Sure,” Klaus chirps, and sweeps off towards the staircase, blowing Five a kiss over his shoulder as he does. Five rolls his eyes and goes to the kitchen to think.

Stella is there, sitting on the table. Her leaves are decided less perky than they were yesterday, Five decides, and he sits down in front of her.

It’s almost noon, and it’s raining. The sky outside is grey, and is casting its somber pallor through the window onto the little kitchen.

“So,” he says experimentally, and receives no response. “Turns out we’re related.”

A part of Five wants to say something, but something else in him knows that there’s nothing _to_ say. Stella is his sister. That’s a fact. Five can feel himself panning for golden puzzles amongst the pebbles of fact he has to work with and coming up with nothing. Every truth here has already been mined, cut, and polished.

Five pulls out one of the old kitchen chairs Dharun left behind and sits down. He wonders if Stella used to sit here. He wonders if Stella watched the raindrops collide with the glass in the windowpanes and if the sight of it nourished her the way water nourishes a tired old plant.

It’s a thought so intrusive and incredibly unlike him that Five glances at Stella and wonders how, in just under two months, he learned to read her mind so well that he can tell exactly when she’s reading his. The strangest thing it that it doesn’t bother him, not really, and neither does the epiphany that she’s his sister.

Perhaps it’s because it changes nothing about who Stella is. Stella is Stella, and will always be Stella, unbound by any concepts of body, life, death, or anything in between. Five knows with an inner certainty that startles even himself that when Stella dies as a peace lily, she will break down into soil and wherever that soil goes it will yield flowers and plants that will bloom unlike any other plants ever have before. Whatever form she assumes, whether she sits tall atop a windowsill or lies amongst the worms, Stella will always be majestically Stella.

It’s these somewhat un-Five-like musings that Klaus interrupts when he twirls through the door, Dharun nowhere to be seen. Klaus kicks a chair away from the table and flings himself onto it dramatically with a deep sigh.

“ _So_ ,” he says. “We have _three_ sisters!”

 “No,” Five says quietly. “I have a feeling we have many, many more than that.”

Klaus frowns. “Huh?”

“There were _43,_ ” Five hisses, gesturing. “43 children. Seven joined the academy. Stella was the eighth. So what happened to the other 35?”

Klaus sighs, suddenly looking exhausted. He props his elbows on his knees and leans forward, holding his face in his hands. “Oh, no, no, no no….”

“What?” Five asks, confused.

“Five,” Klaus whines, leaning back into a sitting position so quickly Five is almost startled. “You can’t do this.”

“Are you going to tell me what you mean or no?” Five asks, although he has a nasty feeling he knows.

“This _thing!”_ Klaus exclaims, and he genuinely sounds- worried? Annoyed? Angry? “I don’t know how to describe it, this _thing_  you do, where you- you- pick a thing, whatever thing, and you go so far into the thing that you _become_ the thing-,”

“It’s just a question,” Five mutters, and Klaus drops his arms on to the table, jaw dropping, staring at him in disbelief.

“Except it’s _not,_ Five, it _never_ is, or if it is then it never stays that way, and you just- just- just don’t, okay? Okay? Because I, I- I can’t stand here, and watch you just- just-,”

Klaus gestures feebly with one hand.

Five isn’t breathing.

“Well, then,” he snarls breathlessly. “Don’t watch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> i'm on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	17. It Never Rains...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to hit something.  
> He wants to hit someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for commenting and leaving kudos! I love you alll!
> 
> in which Five loses his shit and gets wet

Five gets up to storm out of the kitchen, but Klaus moves faster and is between Five and the door in an instant. “Five, come on, man, sit down, let’s at least _talk_ about this.”

Klaus needs to get out of the way.

Klaus needs to stand somewhere that isn’t between Five and the nearest exit.

Five is vibrating, pulsing with anger and energy, and he’s only dimly aware that he’s speaking in a shockingly low, cold tone. “Get out of my way.”

Klaus straightens up, looking resolved. “I can’t.”

And that’s just about the final straw, because _how dare he?_ Him. Five’s junkie brother, who is only about half his age. How dare he stand there, and act as if he knew what was best? _How dare he?_

Five survived the apocalypse. He stopped the apocalypse. He has never met an obstacle he couldn’t not only jump but absolutely demolish and shatter into pieces, and he’s never met a puzzle he couldn’t solve. And now Klaus _dares_ to act as if he’s _out of control-_

He asked a question. That was it. He asked about where the other 35 were. That’s _all_ he did. And Klaus is acting like- like-

“All right,” Klaus says, arms outstretched, talking like one would to a cornered animal. “All right, Five, just calm down, you don’t want to-”

Calm down.

You don’t want to- to what?

_Calm down?_

_How How_

Five sees red.

He steps towards Klaus, who stumbles a few feet back. “What I _want_ ,” he hisses, “is something to fucking  kill, or something to fucking solve, and _don’t_ say that _fucking_ list on the fridge because I will-,”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Klaus is reaching out towards him, looking like he wants to help, and it just makes Five that much madder.

He wants to hit something.

He wants to hit someone.

He wants to make something hurt more than his palms hurt from how deeply his fingernails are embedded in the flesh, wants to make something bleed more than the blood he’s dimly aware of is collecting around his fingernails and sticking under his nails, wants to _rip into something_ and Klaus is right there like he’s _asking_ to be hurt-

Five takes one look at his brother and immediately comes up with about twenty-six ways he could absolutely, totally, _obliterate_ his brother. His soldier’s mind, his analyst’s mind, his rebel’s mind, his survivor’s mind, his mathematician’s mind are all on overdrive and he comes up with the image of Klaus, lying on the floor, bloody-

No.

No way.

Five’s fists glow blue and he only half hears Klaus beginning to protest when he blinks just to the other side of the kitchen door and storms towards the door to 1615. From behind him and through the buzzing in his ears, he’s dimly aware of the squeak of hinges and footsteps, of platitudes and apologies.

He heeds none of it. Instead he blinks straight through the door of 1615 and storms away.

He’d forgotten it was raining. The rain is hard and driving, soaking his clothes in mere seconds, and he hears Klaus yelping somewhere behind him.

The street is mostly empty. The air is dark and grey and Five’s vision is blurry. With each step water splashes up into his shoes, onto his legs, weighing him down. It’s only rain, but suddenly it’s fueling Five’s anger, and there’s something hot and uncomfortable building up in his chest. It just keeps building keeps building keeps building _keeps fucking building-_

Five blinks, hard, and reappears somewhere he barely recognizes through the rain and the anger and the overall immaterialness of it all. That helps a little.

He suddenly misses his punching bag. He wants to hit it. He wants to hit it. He wants to fight-

Five stops in his tracks and slams his fist into the cinderblock wall to his left, and the ache it provides him is satisfying. He growls, low and deep in his throat, and as a car drives by, honking and splashing him head-to-toe in yet more cold, muddy water, he realises that he’s shivering.

It’s cold, out here. Alone. He can’t hear or see Klaus anymore, and everything’s grey and wet.

It’s like he’s sweated his anger out. Now, standing alone on a sidewalk in the middle of the pouring rain, as the showers from above wash the stickiness of metaphorical perspiration from his shivering body, the water seems to settle in his gut and his entire being twists with a feeling of unbearable melancholy.

Strangely enough, the melancholy is missed with a strange sort of contentment. Five shakes his head to whip soaking strands of hair out of his face and looks up into sky as best he can without getting raindrops in his eyes.

Beyond the block he’s standing on, all is noisy. He can hear traffic and honking noises, the bustle of passers-by, and all the sounds of New York City. But here, in this small semi-residential district, there’s no one around to gape at the seemingly 13-year-old kid standing in the middle of the rain.

There’s an incredible feeling of grief in him, now, and he’s starting to want the anger back. Much as he tries, though, he can’t summon it back, and so he stands there, uncomfortably aware of how ridiculous he looks and how wet he is.

Both his hands are bleeding now. His left hand is scarred with the indents left by his fingernails, and his right is scraped up from the cinderblock wall he slammed it into. Five notices a dull, deep ache in it.

He takes a few steps, testing the waters- literally- and finds himself oddly calm, for what feels like the first time in a long time. It’s nice out here, he thinks, in the cold, dark grey street all alone with yelling and sirens in the background. He’s cold and wet and bleeding and in pain and shivering and oddly calm.

Of course, the moment he’s calm, his mind presses play on his train of thought before he stormed out, and Five makes an attempt to focus on the 35-child problem again. However hard he tries, though, all he can think about is Klaus and how desperate he was to stop Five from getting involved.

Five thinks about how quickly he got anger and winces just a little. He crosses a street, wading through a puddle so cold that it leaves his feet feeling numb. The rain’s lightened up a little, he notes.

What Klaus doesn’t understand is that Five needs something to solve, something to obsess over- except the more Five replays Klaus’s words over and over in his mind, the more he realises that Klaus may know and see more about Five than Five gives him credit for. Five has been spending all this time trying to get Klaus to take himself more seriously, but now that he thinks about it, he realises that he himself has only been taking Klaus seriously to the extent that he feels Klaus deserves it. In his defense, Klaus _is_ prone to dramatization; but maybe Five needs to take a step back. Maybe Five needs to look at Klaus differently.

Five has been trying to show Klaus that he’ll be taken seriously, but Five has only been doing that where convenient.

Maybe Klaus has something to say that he should listen to about Five’s 35-part puzzle, some reason for preaching restraint. After all, Five reminds himself, he isn’t bound to follow through on to the advice, as long as he listens.

Maybe if Five attends Preacher Klaus’ sermons, he’ll be allowed to skip confession.

Five kicks at a stone and watches it roll into a little dip in the concrete that has gathered water in it like a pond. He looks up again.

The sky is still overcast with clouds, but the rain has stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me knwo what you thought!  
> i'm on tumblr @dailyplantpics


	18. ...but it pours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Five clears his throat, pulls out a chair and sits down, ignoring the uncomfortable way his wet and quickly drying clothes pull against his skin. “So. The other 35.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marimo

Five eventually finds it in him to return, soaking wet, to 1615 Church Avenue. Klaus is sitting cross-legged on a kitchen chair staring out the kitchen window. Stella’s in his arms, and he’s chewing his lip bloody.

When Five walks in, sopping wet, Klaus looks up and flinches almost imperceptibly, and Five hates himself a little.

Well. A little more.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is hoarse.

“Hey,” says Klaus back, all quiet.

Five stands there for a little while, and they stare at each other.

Finally, Five clears his throat, pulls out a chair and sits down, ignoring the uncomfortable way his wet and quickly drying clothes pull against his skin. “So. The other 35.”

Klaus closes his eyes and bends his head a little.

Five stares at him a second, the words sticking in his throat. The truth is he’s never really done this before, doesn’t like doing this, doesn’t really know how.

Still, he forces the words up like a cat with a hairball. “You were saying something about it?”

Klaus cracks an eye open and looks at Five sideways.

Five waits.

Finally, Klaus uncurls himself from the chair and places Stella on the table. “Maybe you should change first.”

Five opens his mouth to snap at Klaus that he’s perfectly fine, thank you, but something makes him snap his mouth closed. He stays like that a few moments under Klaus’ curious gaze, then forces his mouth open. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Klaus blinks and frowns. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Five says through gritted teeth, and the words leave an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth. Still, he forces himself up and out the kitchen door, through the hallway, up the staircase, down the hallway and into his room. He forces himself to pull off, with carefully controlled movement, his clothes and pull on dry ones.

When he gets back to the kitchen table, Klaus is sitting there with the first –aid kit on the table. Quickly, Five takes a seat and extends his hands before Klaus can tell him to do it. It earns him an odd look, which makes it even better.

“So,” Klaus says halfway through bandaging Five’s first knuckle. “The other 35.”

“We need to find them.”

“Why?”

“They’re our family.”

Klaus finishes Five’s first knuckle and starts the second. “Are they? I mean, I know Stella is,” he says, nodding to the aforementioned Stella. “But, Five… they were born on the same day as us. Really, that’s it.”

Five bristles. “Is that how you feel about us?”

“If you mean us Hargreeves, then _no,_ ” Klaus sighs. “We grew up together. We’re _family_. But there’s no link between us and them. Am I wrong?”

Five is certainly not going to say he’s _right._

“You really need to stop doing this to your hands,” Klaus comments as he finishes up on the second knuckle.

“Why would I do that?” Five says in response, just to be difficult.

“Well, you can’t exactly beat people up with hands that are falling apart.”

That’s… a surprisingly good point, actually, and one that Five doesn’t really know how to respond to. He doesn’t have to, though, since Klaus plows on. “And I mean, once you find these other thirty-five ‘siblings’ of ours-,”

“If,” Five corrects, somehow offended at how simple and easily terminable Klaus makes the feat sound.

“ _When_ you do,” Klaus insists. “I mean, what then?”

 

Neither of them say anything more about it for the next few days. Klaus comes back from AA after work the next day with a small glass jar with what looks like a fuzzy green cotton ball floating happily inside. “Her name is Lucy,” he says proudly. “She’s a marimo.”

Five stares at the fuzzy ball. “Looks like a green hairball.”

Klaus gasps dramatically and clutches Lucy to his chest. “You’ll hurt her feelings!” He sits down at the table, sliding Lucy beside Stella, and beams, leaning back to look at them both. Five sips his tea, which tastes faintly of black pepper and cinnamon, and inspects Lucy.

She’s bobbing up and down lightly in her jar, which is just about the size of a small cup. At the bottom of the jar is a layer of small white pebbles about an inch thick.

Five looks up at Klaus, who with each second of silence is slowly looking more and more like he’s regretting ever introducing Lucy to him.

Five, glad to see Klaus happy and not wanting to spoil it (and also mildly interested despite himself) sighs. “Fine, I’ll bite. How do you take care of her?”

Klaus beams. “Change the water out weekly.”

Five waits, but he doesn’t go on. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Five looks down at his bandaged hands, flexes them, and Klaus’s face grows serious. No one says anything for a moment, then Five breaks the silence. “All right.”

Klaus’s face breaks into a grin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Five keeps going at the punching bag, but he takes Lucy and Stella with him now when he does. Sometimes he feels like taking his wraps off and really letting loose, but the moment he pulls back out of the laser-like focus he adopts during his pseudo-boxing Stella catches his eye, tall and magnificent and imposing, with two more flowers growing from her new stalks.

_Look at me,_ she seems to be saying. _This is not the time to be melodramatic. I don’t have time to watch you destroy yourself. It’s pointless, it’s stupid, and most of all it’s a waste. You don’t want to be wasteful, do you?_

Lucy is tucked halfway behind Stella, sitting contently at the bottom of her jar. Stella’s grown protective over the shy marimo since she moved in, and the two are inseparable.

Five stares at Stella and Lucy for a moment, then changes his wraps to fit better and goes at it again, carefully this time under her watchful eye.

 

Three days later, Klaus brings home another marimo.

“Really?” Five says by way of greeting when Klaus sashays through the door, holding a glass jar identical to Lucy’s. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee. It isn’t late enough for Klaus to be able to complain, and Five has to do _something._ Klaus is wearing a black crop top with a purple skull embroidered on it and his old leather pants. Dog tags dangle from his neck, and he’s wearing an army-style vest that Five isn’t sure he remembers the origin of. 

“What?” Klaus says indignantly, gently plopping the second marimo in beside Lucy. “Not going to ask me how AA was?” It- she? He? –bobs near the top of the water. The marimo is a little smaller than Lucy, Five notes.

“How was AA?” Five asks dutifully, but keeps an eye on Klaus as he answers.

“Rough,” Klaus answers honestly, and climbs up onto the kitchen counter. He reaches out for Five and Five lets him drag him towards him and wrap him in an incredibly uncomfortable and awkward hug, because Klaus gets clingy and touchy like this sometimes and it’s just part of the Hargreeves Two-For-One Trauma Special that Reginald Hargreeves spent years developing each of them into.

(Also, he kind of likes it.)

They stay like that for a while, until Klaus announces abruptly, “You’re naming this one,” and lets him go.

“First of all, do you want to talk about it?” Five says in reply, “And secondly, fuck you. I’m not naming a marimo. What _are_ marimo, anyways? Moss balls?”

“They’re balls of string algae,” Klaus coos, holding Lucy and the other marimo’s jar up to eye level. “They grow in Iceland, and Japan. Also, fuck you too, and yes, I do want to talk about it.” Klaus slides off the counter and grabs Stella in his other arm. “Come on, girls,” he trills, doing some sort of awkward shuffling dance over to the staircase.

Five starts off calling the other marimo just that; ‘the other marimo’. But it’s decidedly far too long to use every day, so he shortens it to ‘the o. marimo’ which becomes ‘the o. m’. That in turn becomes ‘t. o. m.’, and by the end of the week it’s Tom. (Sometimes Five confuses Lucy with Tom, at which point Stella glares at him angrily until he apologizes.)

So Five punches, Klaus goes to work, Stella stands straight and tall and watches over the household, and Lucy and Tom alternately bob and sink in their little glass jar, and they all sink into something that could be called, for lack of any other name, a routine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think


	19. Stabby Stabbie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re- shipping- your half-sister’s ghost with a cactus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy

For the next week, Five stays away from the topic of their possible ‘siblings.’ It’s physically painful, at times, not to slip into that comfortable, well-worn groove of obsession and deep, deep focus; and Five finds himself clawing at the slippery slope he’s sliding down, desperate not to relapse and yet desperately wanting to.

Five comes closer in that week to feeling what it’s like to be Klaus than he probably ever will again.

There’s incredible pain in doing nothing; but there’s pain in doing things, too. There’s pain everywhere, really. Five has been hunching his shoulders against the storm all his life, and now for the first time he finds himself standing straight and tall to meet the pain head-on.

Avoiding conflict, or at least not seeking it, turns out to be the greatest conflict of his life, and Five clings for dear life to the rocks as waves crash onto him and try to tear his numbing fingers, try to toss him into the swirling black sea.

Of course, it’s sheer agony at first. It’s like there’s something clawing at him from within, something clawing to _shred_ and _kill_ , and Five wonders if this is what it’s like to be Ben.

Then there’s driving anger and resentment and Five just feels so _angry_ at Klaus for making him do this (even though he isn’t, really.). He wants to get back at Klaus for it, even though the thought of hurting his baby brother makes him sick, and he wonders if this is how Diego feels.

Five is nothing if not clever, and he knows exactly how to land verbal punches that hurt; he knows with a kind of intimate-yet-deadly accuracy every crevice, every chink in his brother’s armour and he starts staying away from Klaus when he gets like this. He’s afraid of his own words, what he might say, and he feels oddly close to Allison.

The harder Five tries not to think about the siblings he might have, the more he thinks about the siblings he _does_ have.

Lucy and Tom, oddly enough, are incredibly helpful, and with how incredibly protective Stella has grown over them, Five finds himself thinking of them as his niece and nephew. Stella’s firm kindness was a gentle push towards the direction Five now finds himself grudgingly heading towards; Lucy and Tom, on the other hand, seem to do the same and yet the opposite thing in that they pull him towards them in the same direction Stella pushes.

There’s a certain guilt that comes with setting a self-destructive example before plants as young and impressionable as cheerful, innocent Lucy and Tom are, like jaywalking across a busy street in front of a child.

Five fights, but he fights to end the fight. Five fights not to fight. And the thought of not having to fight-

It used to fill him with a dread that was many things, but that was also certain. Now there’s a murkiness in his brain when he thinks of the end of the fight.

The end of the fight is slowly detaching itself in his mind from the end of the line. The two are drifting apart, are becoming like magnets that repel each other.

It’s these thoughts and more that consume Five as he hammers away at his punching bag with a laserlike but measured focus that grows more and more comfortable and familiar with the passage of every day. Five is finding his sea legs, finding alcoves in what his new life is becoming to take shelter in.

It’s telling in and of itself that Five _thinks_ while punching. The blind anger that often took up residence in his undersized body is still present, lurking somewhere in the forest of his mind, but Five is busy growing new trees, and vines are growing like ropes around it as they would around abandoned ruins and pulling it down into the ground.

It will always be a part of him, but it doesn’t have to _be_ him.

Meanwhile, Klaus keeps bringing plants home. He puts a hold on it after the second marimo, but it isn’t long until he comes home again with a pot wrapped in newspaper.

Five raises his eyebrows at him as he comes in. “A cactus.”

Klaus beams. “She’s tiny, prickly, and good at stabbing people. Just like you!”

Her name is Abbie. She stabs Five several times. Five finds it quite endearing, and Klaus sets her up on a plant date with Abbie.

“What?” he asks indignantly when Five gives him a look for suggesting it. “I ship it.”

“Where would you ship her? And why? She just got here.”

“Oh my god, I forgot how old you are- it means I think they’d be cute together.”

“You’re- _shipping-_ your half-sister’s ghost with a cactus.”

“Let me _live!”_

According to Klaus, Abbie and Stella hit it off. Five almost laughs it off, but remembers that he’s supposed to take Klaus seriously at all times, not just when convenient, so from that moment on Abbie and Stella are committed relationships.

“What should their ship name be?” Klaus wonders, and Five briefly thinks Klaus has bought a boat in the name of his cactus and maybe-half-sister’s-ghost-who-is-possessing-a-plant and is wondering what to name it, then writes it off as another obscure pop culture reference. “Abbiella? Oh my god- _Stabbie!_ ”

“It’s official,” he proclaims the next morning, twirling into the kitchen the next morning in a red silk dressing gown. “Stabbie is canon.”

Five considers inquiring as to the link between Klaus’s bizarre “ship” and medieval artillery, and then doesn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think!  
> or come find me on tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	20. Libraries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more he thinks about it, the less he wants to do it, and the more he needs to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for commenting!!!!!
> 
> so we're actually now building up to THE END OF THIS PART OF THE STORY. Never fear, there are still 7 more fics in this series that will be written focussing on seven other characters; but this specific Five-centric fic is almost over. There are about five chapters left to be published after this one!!!! 
> 
> this chapter is also way shorter, it's kind of like a lynchpin or a bridge to link this story to its end in a few chapters.

It isn’t long before Five starts looking for libraries.

What most people don’t understand about aftermath, Five thinks to himself, is that it’s rarely full of emotion and sober self-reflection. But such feelings do eventually arrive; the only difference being that when they finally do, what once was considered aftermath is now nothing more than a new life.

That’s what’s happening, Five thinks, as he searches for certain volumes he remembers finding amongst the post-apocalyptic destruction on the New York Public Library’s website. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, Lucy and Tom beside the laptop that’s in front of them and Abbie keeping watch from the windowsill. Abbie and Five don’t get along too well, but Five has to admit he respects her, and he can definitely feel a certain grudging respect emanating from the little fishhook cactus.

The aftermath has passed. This is his life now. To spend it fighting for the sake of conflict and nothing else is a waste, and Five does hate waste.

Klaus and Stella hate it when he self-destructs, and he can’t afford to set a bad example for Lucy and Tom. He doesn’t think Abbie cares either way; in fact, she might prefer Five gone completely so she can rule the roost. If so, she can be damn sure Five is going to adjust if only to spite her.

So Five looks for libraries, and finds the closest one. Getting there, on the other hand, is a whole other matter. Not that it’s technically difficult; there are several bus stops near 1615, and a relatively simple route.

It’s just… people.

Five isn’t very fond of people.

It may be a strange sentiment for someone who spent so many years alone; Five himself is mildly surprised every time the sight of people makes him want to shrivel up and hide. Not only because wanting to hide makes him want to scratch and tear away the impulse.

Five is restless for weeks leading up to his trip.

Klaus side-eyes him constantly, clearly trying to decide whether or not he should ask. He evidently decides not to, because he gives Five his space for the while. Five is grateful for it, and for the trust that it implies.

Lucy and Tom are quietly encouraging and trusting. They radiate a confidence in him that Five was once afraid to admit he lacked.

Stella is Stella, which is enough.

And the thought of failing in front of Abbie is another extra push.

Five thinks back, back, back to early April. He thinks about meeting Stella; he thinks about how hard he tried to save that sickly little plant. He thinks about his naïveté in assuming that in yelling at her to get better, he was actually helping.

Five is realising that confrontation may not always be the answer. Of course, he isn’t dumb; he’s known how self-destructive he can be for a long time. But there’s a band of steel around his guts that wasn’t there before and a resolve that makes him want to, for the first time, _get_ better instead of _being_ better.

Still. It takes a couple weeks, and Five procrastinates for the first time in his life. He figures he’s earned it, at age 58.

Every time he ‘bends up each corporal agent to the feat’ he finds some new nuance that he’d previously failed to notice: the fact that his will have to be a youth account. The fact that he’ll be treated like a child. The possibility of coming upon Vanya’s book.

The more he thinks about it, the less he wants to do it, and the more he needs to. So in early May of 2019, Five finds himself standing outside a New York Public Library branch, hands curled into fists loose enough not to hurt himself and tight enough to alleviate some of the stifling pressure in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think!  
> I'm on tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	21. The Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment he steps through the door, Klaus is all over him. “Five! Where were you, man?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we're actually now building up to THE END OF THIS PART OF THE STORY. Never fear, there are still 7 more fics in this series that will be written focussing on seven other characters; but this specific Five-centric fic is almost over. There are about four chapters left to be published after this one!!!!

All things considered, the trip to the library goes relatively well.

There are a few minor hurdles; a few kindly condescending yet well-meaning librarians, and a few college students gossiping over _Extra Ordinary_ , but it’s the middle of the workday, and although he does have to make up a hasty excuse about being homeschooled to explain his presence there, the library is relatively quiet and deserted.

Five finds a quiet nook lined with shelves on physics and science; and although he has to make a conscious effort to stay away from books general relativity and the fourth dimension, he manages to get his hands on some nonfiction.

He runs into yet another snag when he realises that he can’t obtain a library card without being signed for by a legal adult, so he finds a quiet, calm spot and reads right there in the library.

 

As the time passes, more and more people stream into the library, and consequently into the room Five’s sitting in. He actually doesn’t notice until he looks up to see the room he’s been reading in alone is now almost full of people coming and going with that dizzying feeling that comes from surfacing above water after being completely, utterly immersed.

It almost makes him jump- he’s surrounded on all sides by strangers and he let it happen, didn’t even notice- but while part of him wants to flip the table and fight his way out, there’s a new, growing part of him that knows that other part of him needs to shut the fuck up.

He keeps his breathing carefully paced and under control as he closes the book and stands. Every step he takes towards the door lasts exactly three seconds, but feels like a lifetime.

Five shoves his hands into his pockets as he leaves. It takes the entire walk back for his heart to reach a manageable pace, and by the time he gets back he’s exhausted from all the restraint and wants nothing more than to let loose at his punching bag.

The moment he steps through the door, Klaus is all over him. “Five! Where _were_ you, man?”

He’s a little too close for comfort. “I went to the library.” Five slips past him and into the kitchen.

Klaus follows behind him like a lost puppy, and Five grits his teeth. “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” Five manages to say without sounding like he wants to put his head through a wall, which he considers as a win. He flops down into a chair; the last thing he wants is for Klaus to follow him up to his room and stand there while he punches, so maybe Klaus’ll leave him alone if he tolerates him for a bit.

Unfortunately, Klaus seems to take Five’s silence as an invitation to speak, so he hauls himself up onto the counter and starts prattling on about his day.

Five knows Klaus isn’t _trying_ to get on his nerves. Klaus works on a different operating system than him. Perhaps there’s some other world where talking and touching and _humans_ are comforting to Five; but whenever there’s so many of them it’s just too much, too much, _too much_ , and Five is getting better, he is, and he knows he is, but this is too much too fast and Five _will crash and burn_ if Klaus doesn’t back down. Just a little.

Five is glad that Klaus is opening up. He is. And he wants to listen to him and help him, he does, but he’s also fucking _exhausted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think
> 
> or come find me @ghibli-ghost-cats


	22. The Wisdom Of Plants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I messed up," Five says quietly, his voice hoarse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are NEARING THE END  
> three more chapters after this one.

Klaus’s voice is a jackhammer, and Five’s brain can’t take much more of it.

 

He lasts around 15 minutes- an impressive length of time considering how desperate he is to _get out of there-_ but at last he mutters some excuse and flees, ignoring the hurt look on Klaus's face.

 

Lucy and Tom are sitting on Five's nightstand when he bursts into his room. Five slams the door shut and winces at the childish connotations of his actions, and it isn't long until he's viciously pounding the shit out of his punching bag.   


When he's exhausted himself, he drops onto his bed and closes his eyes, letting himself fall onto his back. The immediate aftermath over, Klaus's hurt face is starting to creep into his mind, and he groans.

 

Five cracks an eye open to stare at Lucy, who is closest to him through the glass of her and Tom's jar.

 

"I messed up," Five says quietly, his voice hoarse. He pulls himself back up into a sitting position and stares at Lucy and Tom, who sit uncomprehendingly on their bed of small pale-grey pebbles.   


"I spent all this time trying to convince Klaus I'd take him seriously," Five explains, "and now I've just thrown that away."  


He props his chin on his hand. Lucy and Tom, siblings by circumstance, are a matching set.

 

They sink and float, sometimes together, sometimes not. Each of them has their ups and downs, and they revolve around each other, close enough to support each other, but with a margin large enough for both error and room to breathe. They live in close quarters, yet Lucy never bumps into Tom when she rises, and Tom never crashes into Lucy when he sinks.

 

Perhaps, Five thinks, these two balls of string algae are wiser than he gives them credit for.   


Five has been trying to be Klaus's rock, Klaus's anchor. He's been trying to hold them both down in place against the storm; and it's been breaking him to pieces. Breaking both of them, really, because Klaus is trying to save Five just as much as vice versa, and both of them are grabbing and scratching desperately at the seafloor in an effort to hold the other above water.

 

The result of which is, of course, that both of them are sinking.

 

Moreover, Five is starting to wonder if it would be better to let go. For so long Five has been all-or-nothing; but there's nuance in the world, and no one knows that better than Stella. Or Lucy. Or Tom. Or even Abbie.

 

They are, all of them, not strictly people. But if you were to tell Five that each of them doesn't have their own distinct personality, he'd sock you in the jaw, and then return with bruised knuckles to Lucy's worry, Tom's bafflement and Stella's reproach.

 

There's nuance in the world, and maybe it's possible to let go of the old things Five clings to without letting go of his brother. Maybe he needs to float down this river to better shores, and maybe he can do it _with_ Klaus.

 

Maybe it doesn't have to be one sole survivor, one who gets out of this alive, one who is left standing amongst the ruins of everything living. Maybe it can be both.

 

Lucy and Tom don't save each other. They save themselves, and by doing so save the other the anguish of watching someone you love die.

 

They are a part of each other, and by saving themselves they save that part of the other.   


Maybe Five could learn a thing or two from them.

 

Five sighs and stands, unwrapping his knuckles. Him and Klaus need to have a conversation that he's realising has long been overdue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment letting me know what you think  
> i'm on tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	23. A Conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not a feeling he's used to, and not a feeling he likes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only two more chapters left to go after this one aaaaaah

Klaus and Five stare at each other a little while before either speaks. 

Abbie and Stella-  _Stabbie,_  if you will (Five won't) are on the kitchen table. Klaus hasn't moved from his previous position, and there's an unwieldy awkwardness hanging dangerously lowly over the room, threatening to crush the conversation with its history. 

Five clears his throat. "So."

Klaus looks down, picks at his nails; black with blue and red-orange stripes. "So."

Five knows what he wants to say, but he has absolutely no fucking idea how to say it. He looks to Stella for help. 

 _Don't look at me,_  she says.  _You've got to save yourself. Isn't that your whole point?_

Five wonders once again at her ability to read him and glances at Abbie, who is perched beside her girlfriend, grumpy and prickly.  She says nothing for a second, then, as if nudged by the stately Stella, she exuded reluctant trust. 

 _Look_ ,she seems to say.  _I don't particularly like you, but my girlfriend's attached to you for some inane reason. So get over yourself and fix this. Jeez._

It's not the most  comforting spiel, but then again, if it was comfortable it wouldn't prick Five into action. Five clears his throat again and starts. "Klaus."

"Yeah."

Five is helpless. He's completely, utterly at his brother's mercy. He has no ground to defend. He is bartering on even terms, totally completely susceptible to however this goes. 

It's not a feeling he's used to, and not a feeling he likes. 

Five plows on anyway.

"I spent- I don't even know how many years- in an apocalyptic landscape where my only form of human interaction was with half a mannequin."

"The first person I talked to after that was a manipulative pyschopath with whose help I became a bounty hunter. I spent the next years killing people, and then I returned to a world where no one believed me and no one took me seriously-,"

"Can't imagine what's that like," Klaus mutters sarcastically under his breath, dropping his leg off the counter to swing it idly. Five breaks off and stares at him. 

"Klaus- I- I can't save you."

"I've never asked you to-,"

"But you try to save  _me,_ " Five pleads, god, he's fucking  _pleading_ , "and you  _can't,_ Klaus, okay? You can't save me, and I can't save you, but maybe we can save ourselves. And maybe we can do it together. But it's only going to work if we stop obsessing over each other like this. Okay? And what works for me won't work for you, and what works for you won't work for me, but maybe we can work together."

There's silence, and in it Five is only sure of one thing and one thing alone; and that's that Stella, who has been listening attentively, is proud of him. Even Abbie looks a little softer. 

After what seems like a thousand eternities, Klaus nods. "Okay."

Five shifts nervously. "Okay." 

"Yeah. I get it."

Those three words send a jolt of relief through Five that make him remember why it was, exactly, that Five chose Klaus, of all people, to come with him. 

There's a sort of kinship between Five and Klaus that comes with being incomprehensible; there's a sort of similarity between hiding between faux stupidity and faux arrogance. And, among other things, Klaus and Five are both eons older than they look. 

Klaus speaks. "Do you have enough energy to be vented to?"

Five swallows. "I do."

Klaus slips off the counter and melts onto the kitchen floor. Five is briefly concerned, but then remembers that Klaus is Klaus and pulls out a kitchen chair instead, taking a seat. 

 

So they talk. 

That evening it's Ben Klaus talks about, and Dharun. There aren't many ghosts in 1615, but more and more have been arriving recently, and with Ben and, now, Dharun, apparently, AWOL- well, suffice to say, things have been rough.

The conversation lasts a thousand years and yet only a few brief seconds; Five, who knows that time is an illusion and yet far too real for anyone’s good, is surprised afterwards to learn that the arbitrary measurements of time standardized by humanity defines it as lasting around three hours.

It’s far too long and far too little, Five muses as he climbs the stairs to his room afterwards, his mind heavy and limbs light. The sky is burning down, and when Five reaches his room he walks over to the window and pushes it open, leaning on his crossed arms as he surveys what little of the sunset he can see above the skyline.

The sun is setting, and the sky is burning down. Blue and purple tinge what Five can see of the horizon from his second-floor perch, and the golden light is soft on everything.

It’s beautiful, and though he knows it’s cheesy, Five can’t help but wonder where his siblings are right now.

Where is Luther? Diego? Allison?

Where are the other 35?

Five doesn’t know why, but suddenly all he can think of Stella.

Five thinks back, back, back, to his dogged persistence, to his decision to keep Stella alive because of a promise. He’d decided that Stella should live, and should live because of an obligation Five felt he had. He remembers that plant, wilting, barely alive, partly dead, and he remembers how he scolded it, how he hissed at it to _stay alive._ He remembers the grim satisfaction he felt when she perked up, and the way it scratched his itch to get a job well done.

He remembers finding out he was wrong all along and had nothing to do with it; he remembers feeling foolish as he realised how foolish he had been to think yelling at someone to get better was actually going to help.

Thinking about it now, he’s not even sure how much of a right he had to interfere in Stella’s- life? Death?- even if Dharun passed her into his hands.

And his pseudo-siblings? What right does he have to foist himself upon them? More than that, what has he to offer? He has no insight to offer into whatever their gifts are.

Wherever the other 35 are, they’re there because they got themselves there. Does Five has the right to mess with that.

Five’s thoughts return to Stella. Bright, beautiful Stella, who even in death shines, who even in death is stern and kind and regal and majestic and everything that she should be. Stella, who built a life in first America, then France, then America again.

Is it fair of Five to use 35 innocent people as a way to scratch his own trauma-induced permanent itch?

The answer, of course, is no.

Besides, Five thinks, he has two _real_ siblings who are apparently living under this very roof and that have apparently gone AWOL. The mystery of the disappearing ghosts of Ben, Dave, and Dharun are quite enough for him. (Also, willingly seeking out 35 strangers seems a bit hypocritical coming from the person who just made a whole speech about liking to be alone.)

And then there’s-

And then there’s Vanya to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment letting me know what you think  
> i'm on tumblr @ghibli-ghost-cats


	24. A Decision Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think,” Klaus says, “I’ve had an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my gosh, you guys... this is the second last chapter???????????????
> 
> aaah i'm genuinely scared, I don't know if you guys realise, but I've been writing a chapter a day for what will soon be 25 days? it has been wild? shoutout to those commenters who were with me the whole way and to those who joined later on; also shoutout to those readers who didn't comment but who kept up with the story all the same. you know who you are.

Five has tried to avoid thinking about Vanya since the apocalypse for a couple reasons.

First of all, it’s painful; secondly, it’s painful not in the way Five can put up with, like bruised knuckles and cuts. It’s painful in a way that pushes like a hot spike out of somewhere inside of his chest; it’s far too internal for Five to be able to choose a stance against.

Then there’s the fact that the more he thinks about it, the more he blames himself for it, and more he realises its consequences.

Five knows he can’t mess with it. The truth is that Vanya’s death was- however much the thought makes him wince- the best possible outcome; the outcome that resulted in the least amount of carnage. But still.

Yet Vanya remains at the forefront of his mind for the next few days. Every other person they know who has died has had a logical process in terms of the afterlife; they’ve shown their faces as either ghosts or ghosts possessing plants, and however open-ended the conclusion of their stories, everything’s been summed up nicely and wrapped with a bow. Vanya, on the other hand, is a cliff-hanger, a baffling outlier, ever as death as she was in life.

It’s almost fitting, Five would say, her handling death on her own terms- except Five isn’t sure she _is_ handling her on her own terms, and he wonders if this is what death is like to normal people. Just… gone. No conclusions, no closure, no nice, neat goodbye, just a story cut off in the middle of a sentence near the end with no explanation or even a dash to show

Five hums thoughtfully, bouncing his leg as he sips coffee one morning in the kitchen. Their entire plant family is sitting on the table; Abbie fiercely protective of Lucy and Tom, Lucy and Tom sweet and unassumingly wise, Stella clever, sharp, and beautiful as ever. Five lifts his coffee mug in tribute to her and imagines her bowing slightly, bending in a graceful nod of acknowledgement. Then again, he might not be imagining it. With Stella, it’s hard to tell.

It’s these thoughts; thoughts of Vanya and where she might be, if she even is, if her story cut off as abruptly as Diego’s girlfriend Patch did; that consume Five as the days tick on; it’s early May, now, and Klaus is thoughtful and pensive.

“I’ll bite,” Five says finally when he finds Klaus lying on his back on the kitchen table with Abbie balancing precariously on his forehead, Stella on his stomach, and Lucy and Tom in his hands. He rescues Abbie off Klaus’s forehead as she glares at him for daring to assume she needs help and steals Lucy and Tom to hold in his own hands. Stella he leaves on Klaus.

Five considers sitting in a chair, but changes his mind and awkwardly hops onto the kitchen counter, trying to put Klaus into perspective from his own eyes. He rests the cool glass of Lucy and Tom’s jar against his forehead and rolls it, closing his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“I think,” Klaus says, “I’ve had an idea.”

“Really?” Five questions, interested. He opens his eyes to see Klaus still immobile, eyes shut, face peaceful. “What?”

“Not yet,” Klaus says quietly. “I’m still chewing out the details, and I haven’t held council yet.”

Five doesn’t know what that means, but he decides not to question Klaus. He’ll tell Five when he’s ready to tell him. Until then, Five has a plan.

“We need supplies,” Five declares, setting Lucy and Tom on the counter beside him and hopping up to check the fridge, then to pull the grocery list off the fridge from beside their to-do lists. He hesitates for a second, and then grabs a pen from on top the fridge.

He inspects the bottom of his to-do list, where Klaus insisted he add his goal. _To get better,_ Five reads, and winces, remembering how humiliated writing it had made him feel. Now, though, he crosses it out and amends it: _To keep getting better._

Five shoves the list deep into his pocket and puts the pen back. He turns towards Klaus, ever immobile. “I’m going on a grocery run. Want to come?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Klaus intones in a deep, dramatic, steepling his fingers high in the air. “I have a council to hold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLS COMMENT LETTING ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK  
> IM ON TUMBLR @GHIBLI-GHOST-CATS


	25. A Supply Run: AKA Le Finale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re all in agreement,” Klaus intones, and Five assumes he means the plants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's.... the end..... :((((  
> here we go!!!

There are _people_ in the grocery store. Five doesn’t like it one bit.

With difficulty, Five ignores them and focuses on one thing; milk.

He feels oddly grateful for his small size as he slips past a couple and their child, an elderly woman, and a tired-looking college kid. The milk is, predictably, in the dairy aisle, which unluckily is also full of people.

Five finds a spot facing the freezers and stands there, trying to ignore how close he is to- he doesn’t even know how many of there are- strangers. It goes against every instinct he hast to stand her like this, back exposed, vision tunnelled onto an area of the room no attack could possibly come from, an unknown number of enemies on either side and no escape route planned and provided for.

Every muscle in his body is tense. Every inch of him is itching to run, or to fight.

Five does neither.

He’s aware of how strange this must look, of how bizarre it must be to be shopping at a grocery store and to see a 13-year-old kid glaring angrily at the dairy, looking like he’s narrowly avoiding a panic attack.

Still, he ignores it all.

He’s not sure how long it takes him- and maybe it doesn’t matter- but in the end, he gets his milk.

Things get a little easier once he’s retrieved the milk without being attacked. Only a little, though; Five is aware that it’s in human nature to relax significantly and sometimes overconfidently once a trial run proves successful. He walks a careful line between overconfidence and paranoia, and he has no idea when he’s on or off the line.

Five gets the eggs without having a panic attack. His hackles raise every time someone walks past him, but he manages not to attack anyone and counts it as a win.

He gets a basket, eventually. He has to. Carrying something heavy and cumbersome isn’t very reassuring; it’d almost certainly slow him down in a fight; but Five consoles himself with the fact that it means his hands aren’t as full. That’s a definite advantage.

What people don’t understand about aftermath, Five thinks to himself, is that it’s rarely full of emotion and sober self-reflection.

Much as Five has to admit he loves his siblings, they’re naïve. In fact, compared to him they’re romantics, no matter how disillusioned they think themselves to be.

But maybe it isn’t so bad, to be a romantic. Maybe knowing everything, and doing everything, and being ridiculously capable, is overrated, because it’s always, always a lie. No one can do everything, and- much as it hurts to admit- neither can Five.

Five finishes collecting everything on the list and finds himself in line for the checkout.

Five remembers standing at a motel door, with Klaus behind him and Luther in front, and he remembers telling his brother a few truths it was hard for him to hear.

There was nothing left then Vanya was- still is- gone, and Reginald Hargreeves is dead, and the Academy’s gone, and Pogo’s gone, and Grace is gone, and they avoided the apocalypse, and there was nothing left.

Luckily, it’s not Five’s first time building something out of nothing.

Five didn’t, and doesn’t know much of his siblings’ lives from when he was gone, but he knows Klaus has had to do things and stay places that he shouldn’t have had to. Five had been gone for too long and missed too much and let too much happen, but maybe not all of that was his fault. He doesn’t have to save Klaus- more importantly, he can’t.

The only person he’s completely responsible for is himself.

There are people on the street and on the sidewalk and in the buildings, people who are safe and alive and have no idea what Five has lost. There are people all around them who have no idea how close he came to extinction.

Unbidden, the image of Vanya lying immobile springs to mind. He sucks in a breath, suddenly feeling too warm.

That still hurts. It always will. He- loved- Vanya, and she’s gone, gone forever by the looks of it.

Five will adapt, because he can, and because he _should_.

 _I’ve done my time,_ Five once screamed at life. _Why do I have to do it all again?_ But now that he thinks on it, he realises that the way he lived before wasn’t much of a life, anyways.

If Five had to live the way he did all those years working for the Commission or surviving the apocalypse, he doesn’t doubt that he would crumble into pieces.

Maybe it isn’t that he _has_ to _do it all_ again. Maybe this is just a chance to do things differently, to do things right.

The sun will set soon, and Five’s going to get to watch it set over and over and over again for longer than what most people get. Most people don’t get second chances. For whatever reason, Five does.

The lady in front of him pays and shuffles out of the aisle, and Five loads his groceries onto the table absent-mindedly, flicking through the bills he’s brought. The cashier, who has bright pink hair and a nose ring, raises his eyebrows at him briefly before returning to work.

Retail. Five’s never worked in it, but Klaus has, and has described it as roughly equivalent to hell.

Five has always had this urge, this drive to _do something._ He’s used to survival. He’s used to bounty hunting. He’s used to fighting against the clock to stop the apocalypse.

Having nothing, it occurs to him, is another form of the apocalypse.

Five’s got a lot of getting better to do.

Five and Klaus made two lists.

One for Klaus, and one for Five. Klaus initially suggested a therapist, but Five pointed out that whoever they go to will probably label Klaus as schizophrenic and Five as a delusional child (neither of which he is).

Five shoves his hand into his pocket as the cashier rings up his purchase and feels a piece of paper shoved deep inside of it. He frowns, pulling it out and smoothing it out.

It’s his list.

Five thinks back to earlier that afternoon, to Klaus lying on the kitchen table. He could’ve sworn he pinned the to do list back up.

Five skims over the list, reading what he’s written. It’s not really a list, he realises. More like a group of errant thoughts on himself.

_It wasn’t until I met Delores that I realized that love was more than just a luxury._

_It unsettles me, not being able to see who’s in the room with me. Now that I think about it, it’s probably from that same conflict-addiction Klaus was talking about. I’m always in combat mode, and the last thing you want in a violent situation is to not be able to see the enemy._

_What’s it like being dead?_

_Everything since Vanya’s death has been mental cotton candy, as unsatisfying as biking on first gear._

_It’s not that I don’t trust Klaus, specifically. But if you want a job well done…_

_Self-destruction._

The list goes on and on; errant thoughts sprinkled in with random conclusions. And at the end: _to keep getting better._

“Got everything?”

Five jumps, looking up. The bored-looking cashier nods at the list in his hands. “Got everything on your list?”

“Yeah,” Five says quickly. “Yeah, thanks. Or at least… I’m getting there.”

The cashier looks at him oddly, but shrugs and slides Five his groceries across the counter. As Five heads out of the store, he realises that his answer to the cashier may have been more accurate than he thought while saying it.

 

Five comes home to see Klaus sitting in the middle of the still-deserted store area that neither Five nor Klaus has found a use for. He’s surrounded by their plants; Lucy and Tom on one side, Stella on the other and Abbie beside Stella. His eyes are closed, his legs are crossed, and he’s wearing an expression of deep thought.

“Hey,” Five says awkwardly, standing there. Klaus is between him and the kitchen. “How’d your council go?”

“We’re all in agreement,” Klaus intones, and Five assumes he means the plants.

“All right, so…?” A thought occurs to Five. “Does this mean you can tell me your idea now?”

“I certainly can.”

Five waits impatiently, but Klaus offers nothing. “Well? What is it?”

Klaus’s eyes fly open. “I’m thinking of quitting my job.”

“What? Why? Is that your idea? That’s a terrible idea.”

“That’s not the idea, Five, it’s _for_ the idea.”

“Which _is?_ ”

Klaus draws his knees in and wraps his arms around his legs. He looks curiously up at Five from where he sits. “Is it totally insane to suggest we start a plant nursery?”

Five stares. The obvious answer to that question is yes. Yes, it’s completely insane to suggest two people intimately familiar with death; two people who are total strangers to life and who have no experience raising plants whatsoever (except Stella, Abbie, Lucy and Tom, but Five would argue he and Klaus were raised _by_ them and not vice versa) should start a plant nursery of all things.

It’s completely insane.

Five dumps his groceries on the store counter and plops himself down on the floor beside Klaus. “Go on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END
> 
> that's it for this fic! There will be seven other fics in this series, though. The next part will probably be published around a week from now, and will take the perspective of another of the 8 central characters this fic will focus on.
> 
> pls comment letting me know what you think!!! Will Klaus and Five start their nursery??? Is Vanya really gone forever? Where is BEN???????? 
> 
> i'm on tumblr, where I post updates about this fic. @ghibli-ghost-cats


	26. Update!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> !!!

Part 2 of the series is up!!!!! Enjoy!!!! I'm so excited to see what you guys think :)

 

By the way, if you want extra content, updates on my writing/writing process, unpublished blurbs, to get to know me or even just to scream at me about literally anything, you can find/do all that on my tumblr, @ghibli-ghost-cats. 


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